‘The Europa syndrome’

Date: 13/04/06

The latest Ariane 5 flight, on 11 March, was an unsung victory over one of the oldest foes of Europe in space: the Europa syndrome.

In the 1960s, a group of European nations (plus Australia) had teamed together to develop a satellite launch system. The European Launcher Development Organisation was formed and the overall work was shared between the partners. The UK, France and Germany each provided a stage, Italy was in charge of the payload fairing, Belgium of tracking and the Netherlands of telemetry. The policy was that no country should prevail among others and the project had no firm leadership. The result was a string of disasters: taken separately, each of the Europa launcher's elements performed correctly, but together they failed miserably. In 1967-71, there were four attempts to launch a satellite, three ended in fireballs and one simulated a missile launch onto the US, almost ending in a major diplomatic incident.

In 1973, Europa was terminated and a new project was decided, with new rules. The Ariane programme was massively sponsored by France (which paid for two-thirds of the original development) and European countries delegated the leadership of development to CNES, the French space agency. Ariane not only flew within schedule and budget, but it was also a tremendous success. The original design evolved through four generations and eventually generated revenues for the European industry worth more than four times the initial investment. Even more revenues were generated through the development of a competitive European satellite industry and of European-based international satellite operators, simply by breaking the previous monopoly of the US for access to space in the Western world.

When the development of a brand new follow-on design was decided, in 1987, everybody wanted a larger share of the pie. Ariane 4 was then dominating a booming market in communication satellites and many over-optimistic analysts thought space transportation had become a mature commercial business. This resulted in a scattering of industrial roles in the design of Ariane 5. After the maiden flight failure, in June 1996, some voices complained that no one had a clear picture of the overall launcher but they went mostly unheard until December 2002 and the dramatic loss of the first uprated Ariane 5. The failure investigation made clear that multiple layers of delegated responsibilities were the root cause of the disaster. The mishap had occurred on the main engine's nozzle built in Sweden on behalf of a German combustion chamber manufacturer, itself a sub-contractor to a French space propulsion contractor, which took orders from Arianespace, while technical specifications came from two space agencies and an industrial architect. Too many cooks in the kitchen had spoilt the broth: the Europa syndrome had struck again.

The early months of 2003 saw a painful restructuring of the space transportation industry, benefiting from the consolidation that had already bonded together multiple national firms into large multinational conglomerates. By May 2003, European Space Agency (ESA) member states approved a new scheme that kept most national work shares but transferred the whole responsibility of Ariane production to EADS. The first batch of EADS-produced launchers was ordered in May 2004 and the first model eventually flew last month.

But the challenge is not met yet. The collapse of the commercial launch market in the early 2000s demonstrated that launchers cannot survive on the singular market. In 2003, ESA voted for the European Guaranteed Access to Space (EGAS) programme to pour EUR 160 million per year in Ariane up to 2009. By the end of the decade, EADS should have reduced its production costs by 20% to keep Ariane 5 competitive without this support. The consolidation has already helped a lot towards this goal but more efforts are still needed.

Is the Europa Syndrome defeated? Not yet. It has shown up again recently in the space engine sector, which was unable to consolidate because of German regional political issues. While the sector is already organised around France's Snecma for cryogenic engines, some ESA member states would like to delegate the development of other engines to its subcontractors in Germany and Italy. Triplicated competences are unlikely to give Europe the needed boost in space.

• Stefan Barensky is a freelance journalist and space consultant based in Montpellier.

Author looks at the history of European space launch activity.
Article is part of a European Voice Special Report, 'European Space Policy'.

European Space Agency: Homepage http://www.esa.int/esaCP/index.html

---