Eumetsat Confirms The
Choice Of Arianespace’s European Launchers For
Its Future Missions
EUMETSAT announced the
signing on December 2 of the “joint statement on
the institutional exploitation of Ariane 6 and
Vega C” in favor of a European preference for
launchers on institutional missions in Europe,
initiated by ESA in Madrid in October 2018.
Therefore, EUMETSAT joins
the European institutions which express support
for this agreement, namely:
ESA, ASI (the Italian Space
Agency), the French CNES national space agency,
the CDTI (Spain), the DLR German space agency,
the Austrian Research Promotion Agency, and the
State Secretariat of the Swiss Confederation in
charge of space issues.
From now on, the current
and future satellites in the EUMETSAT fleet will
be launched as a priority by Ariane 6 or Vega C
– the two future European launcher versions –
and their launch manifest scheduling will be
reworked accordingly.
EUMETSAT also has chosen
Arianespace for the launch of its MTG-I2 imaging
satellite, a member of the thirdgeneration
Meteosat family (MTG), by confirming an option
that was placed in July 2015 initially on Ariane
5, and will now utilize an Ariane 6.
Following this signature,
EUMETSAT Director General Alain Ratier said:
“EUMETSAT, which is a longstanding customer of
Ariane launch services, is pleased to sign the
joint statement and to confirm its confidence in
the next generation of European launchers.”
Stéphane Israël, the Chief
Executive Officer of Arianespace, added: “I
would like to congratulate EUMETSAT for joining
the club of European institutions having
committed to a European launch preference for
their satellites. I am delighted with this
decision, which confirms the launch of MTG-S1 by
Ariane 6, and which paves the way for both the
first Metop-SG satellites and the MTG-I2
satellite to be orbited by this future European
heavy-lift launcher, along with other
perspectives for the future family of European
launchers at the benefit of the European
meteorological operator – a key customer for
Arianespace.”
Arianespace and EUMETSAT
will now consolidate the launch scheduling for
the five state-of-the-art meteorological
satellites in the launch orderbook (MTG-I1,
MTG-S1, MTG-I2, METOP-SG A1 and METOP-SG B1),
and an additional launch, still on option,
depending on the availability dates of the
satellites and the Ariane 5 and Ariane 6
launchers at the Guiana Space Center.
During the coming years,
the MTG and Metop-SG families will have six more
satellites to launch. Since June 1981,
Arianespace has launched 13 satellites for
EUMETSAT.