Astrium Satellites is one of the three business units of Astrium, a subsidiary of EADS. It is a European space manufacturer involved in the manufacture of spacecraft used for science, Earth observation and telecommunication, as well as the equipment and subsystems used therein and related ground systems.
EADS Astrium Satellites employs around 8, 348 people on nine sites in the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Spain. As of 11 June 2007, the CEO of Astrium is Evert Dudok who took over from Antoine Bouvier who became CEO of EADS subsidiary MBDA .
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Astrium was formed in 2000 from a merger between Matra Marconi Space (France, UK) the space division of DaimlerChrysler Aerospace AG and Computadores Redes e Ingenería SA. Hence Astrium was a joint EADS/BAE Systems venture.
On 16 June 2003 the minority shareholder, BAE Systems, sold its 25% share to European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company, making EADS sole shareholder. Astrium became EADS Astrium Satellites and in a wider restructuring of EADS became the major constituent of EADS Astrium, which also includes EADS Astrium Space Transportation and EADS Astrium Services.
In this restructuring the former Astrium Space Infrastructure division merged with EADS Launchers & Vehicles division to form EADS SPACE Transportation, which became later EADS Astrium Space Transportation. Also, Paradigm Secure Communications Ltd, initially created by Astrium in the frame of the Skynet 5 contract for the UK Ministry of Defence became the major constituent of EADS SPACE Services.
CASA Espacio became part of EADS Astrium on 1 January 2004. EADS Astrium is the sole shareholder of Infoterra Ltd.
On 1 July 2006, the French subsidiary of EADS Astrium, EADS Astrium SAS, merged with other French subsidiaries of EADS Space (especially EADS Space Transportation). The name of the new company is Astrium SAS. Equivalent mergers have been achieved in 2006 in the other countries. Nevertheless, the EADS group does not communicate about these mergers, excepted when required by the law (contractual documents).
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