After a very tuff international competition, Arianespace & CNES have awarded nearly $1 Billion in Spaceport Support Contracts. GTD has been awarded during the next five years more with 34 M$ total contracts for supporting and operating computerized control centers, radars, telemetry and telecom systems. Europe’s Arianespace launch services consortium and the French space agency, CNES, on Dec. 22 announced they had concluded new five-year contracts totaling 700 million euros ($940 million) with the major companies performing operations and maintenance work at the Guiana Space Center spaceport in French Guiana. As it has been during the last 15 years, GTD has been awarded again as the main responsible for the computerized critical systems (Control centers, radars, telemetry flight safety and telecom systems..) Arianespace and CNES both said the contracts’ overall cost will permit them to realize substantial synergies as they spread many of the fixed costs of the launch base over three vehicles starting in 2012. Joining the heavy-lift Ariane 5 rocket at the Guiana center, located on the northeast coast of South America, is Russia’s medium-lift Soyuz rocket, which has made two flights from the equatorial spaceport; and the Vega small-satellite launcher, which is expected to enter service early in 2012. Arianespace Chairman Jean-Yves Le Gall, in a statement announcing the industrial contracts, said they are in line with the company’s commitments to ESA to work to reduce the costs of the Ariane 5 system in general.
