Competitor in the Cosmos

By Louisa Wright

Europe's Arianespace is giving NASA a run for the money

Two days after Discovery's lift-off from Cape Canaveral, a rival space vehicle blasted into the heavens on a mission that was considerably less acclaimed but, for the commercial future of the U.S. space program, ominously successful. Ariane V 11, the latest effort of the eleven-nation European Space Agency, rose from the space center at Kourou in the equatorial jungles of French Guiana to an orbit of 22,300 miles above the equator. There the rocket deposited two communications satellites. One of them, like many of Ariane's payloads, was sponsored by an international communications agency. The other satellite, however, was Spacenet 2, the second device that Ariane has carried into orbit for a U.S. customer, in this case General Telephone and Electronics Corp. With a combination of technological prowess and shrewd marketing, Arianespace had won the Spacenet 2 contract away from NASA in the latest round of what promises to be a fierce competition for profits in the cosmos.

The voyage of Ariane V 11 was the third successful venture for Arianespace, the mainly French-based company that manages commercial operations for the ESA. The company's first moneymaking launch came in May, almost 2 1/2 years after the ESA began with a series of noncommercial flights. Most of Arianespace's customers are firms and government agencies from within the European Community. Nonetheless, both Arianespace and NASA are competing for the proliferating satellite market outside Western Europe. So far, Arianespace has won contracts for six American, two Brazilian, one Arab, one Australian and several other international payloads. Altogether, the European company has about $750 million worth of contracts for launching 30 satellites. By comparison, NASA has booked 76 commercial contracts worth $1.9 billion over the next four years. Says Jerry Fitts, deputy director of customer services for NASA: "In a very friendly way, we are competing very seriously against each other."

One selling point for Ariane is its reliability. The Europeans have a string of six successful launches since June 1983. NASA, by contrast, has had some problems on all of its 14 space-shuttle missions. That discrepancy, say Arianespace executives, has done more than, enhance the European rocket's reputation: it has caused insurance companies to lower their rates for Ariane flights and raise them for space-shuttle missions. Insurers have good reason for valuing reliability. The industry paid Indonesia and the Western Union Co., original owners of the two errant satellites recovered last week by Discovery, a total of $180 million in claims after the devices were placed in orbit incorrectly on an earlier space-shuttle flight.

Price is another category in which the Europeans are closing in on NASA. Arianespace's total fee for a shared launch, in which two satellites can be carried for clients who split the cost, runs between $25 million and $30 million. NASA, which does not allow sharing, charges each customer a flat fee of about $10 million, though prices are scheduled to rise by 80% next October. Arianespace's fees are not expected to change until 1989. In addition, Arianespace has found ways to ease the burden of flying European. Among the firm's 51 shareholders are 13 European banks, which offer favorable financing arrangements for Arianespace customers, an important consideration for a client facing a multimillion-dollar expenditure. Arianespace executives consider such enticements necessary to counter what they claim are "enormous government subsidies" enjoyed by the space shuttle, an advantage that NASA officials deny.

Prices aside, Ariane has an edge over the space shuttle in doing certain kinds of work. A conventional three-stage rocket, Ariane can put its satellites into what scientists call geosynchronous orbit, 22,300 miles above the earth. The shuttle, by contrast, is designed to take payloads to near earth orbit, between 150 and 700 miles. Ariane's launch site on the equator means that a gentler trajectory, and consequently less fuel, is required to boost a payload into stationary orbit. In addition, satellites positioned farther from earth, where there are fewer molecules to cause friction, tend to last longer than those that orbit closer. Ariane's satellites have had an average working life of nine years, vs. seven for those hauled by the shuttle.

For Ariane, simplicity is an Important virtue. The European rocket releases a satellite directly into orbit, dumping the payload at the correct height. The shuttle is launched by conventional rocket and then depends on rocket boosters to maneuver the satellite to its destination. That two-step process, critics say, is so complicated that the possibility of mishap is increased. Shuttle loyalists, however, insist that Ariane lacks the flexibility of the U.S. craft, and they point to last week's retrieval as an example of its wide range of capabilities. "That's the kind of thing you can't do with an expendable system like Ariane," says Miles Waggoner, NASA's spokesman for international affairs. Beyond all that, the shuttle is reusable, a feature that should help NASA hold down its costs as the program continues.

Perhaps the next avenue of competition between Ariane and the space shuttle will be weight. Ariane V 11 carried a payload of 2.5 tons last week, while Discovery carried only 1.4 tons. The Europeans are planning to put more powerful rocket engines on the next Ariane, scheduled for 1986, allowing it to handle a payload of 4.2 tons. NASA's plans call for a more modest increase in capacity, to between 1.75 and 2 tons by 1986. In addition, Arianespace officials expect that by the mid-1990s they will be able to place heavy loads with great precision into low orbit, which would be a direct challenge to one of the space shuttle's strengths. Says Roger Vignelles, launch director for the French National Space Agency, a part owner of Arianespace: "I think that we can give the Americans an interesting run for their money."

--By Louisa Wright.

Reported by Carolyn Lesh/Washington and Tala Skari /Paris

With reporting by Carolyn Lesh, Tala Skari