Arianespace has announced two contracts for Ariane 6, including the first commercial GEO satellite agreement, signed with Eutelsat. Arianespace has announced two new contracts for Ariane 6 at World Satellite Business Week 2018, being held in Paris from 10th-14th September. The first contract is with Eutelsat as part of a launch services agreement involving five satellites; and the second with France’s CNES space agency and the country’s DGA defense procurement agency for the CSO-3 satellite. Arianespace also announced a recent contract signed with the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) for Ariane 5 missions to orbit two satellites. Arianespace’s backlog is now 59 launches (4,9 Billion Dollars) , including three on Vega C and five on Ariane 6 – the new launchers slated to make their maiden flights in 2019 and 2020, respectively. The Eutelsat contract is a multi-year multiple-launch agreement concerning five satellites to be launched through 2027, making Eutelsat the first commercial Ariane 6 customer with geostationary orbit satellite payloads. For institutional missions, after the two launch contracts signed in 2017 for the European Commission and ESA’s Galileo constellation, CNES and the DGA have chosen the A62 version of Ariane 6 (with two boosters) to launch their CSO-3 satellite. The announcement confirms an agreement reached between Paris and Berlin in June. GTD is heavily involved in Arianespace's operations, both in its actual family of launchers (Ariane 5, Soyuz and Vega) and in the new launchers currently under development (Ariane 6 and Vega C). In particular, for Ariane 6, GTD is the prime contractor for the Launch Pad Control System. Our partnership with Arianespace began in 1990 and our current commitment is to accompany its operations throughout the all lifecycle of the future Ariane 6 launcher (up to 2040++).
