Astrium Satellites
Astrium Satellites was one of the three business units of Astrium (now Airbus Defence and Space), a subsidiary of EADS (now Airbus Group). It is a European space manufacturer involved in the manufacturing of spacecraft used for science, Earth observation and telecommunications, 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 15 October 2012, the CEO of Astrium is Eric Beranger who took over from Evert Dudok who became Astrium Services.
Company history
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 Ingeniería 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, 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).
Past & current programmes
Telecoms
- Alphabus
- Alphasat I-XL
- Amazonas 1 & 2
- Anik F1R & F3
- Arabsat 4A, 4B, 5A & 5C & BADR-4, 5, 6 & 7
- Astra 2B, 2E, 2F, 2G, 1M, 1N, 3B & 5B.
- Direct TV 15
- Eutelsat Atlantic Bird 7
- Eutelsat W1
- Eutelsat W2M
- Eutelsat W3A
- Eutelsat 3B
- Eutelsat MEA-SAT 3B
- Hellas-Sat
- Hispasat 1A and 1B
- HYLAS
- Eutelsat Hot Bird 2-5
- Eutelsat Hot Bird 7-10
- Eutelsat Ka-Sat
- Express AM4, AM4R
- Express AM7
- Inmarsat 2 F1, F2, F3 & F4
- Inmarsat 4 F1, F2 & F3
- Intelsat 10-02
- Nilesat 101 and 102
- Nimiq 4
- Orion-1
- ST-1
- Stentor
- Telecom 2
- WorldStar (Afristar, Asiastar, Worldstar 3)
- Yahsat 1A & 1B
Military
- CSO (forthcoming]
- Essaim
- Helios 1B
- Helios 2A
- Manpack
- Master
- Scot
- Skynet 4/NATO IV
- Skynet 5
- SATCOM BW2
- Spirale 1A/1B
Earth observation
- ADM-Aeolus
- Alsat
- Champ
- COMS
- CryoSat
- ERS 1 & 2
- Envisat
- GOCE
- Grace
- Kompsat-2
- KRS [forthcoming, launch forecast 2014]
- MSG
- Meteosat
- Metop 1, 2, 3
- MicroSAR
- Pleïades
- FORMOSAT-2 (ROCSAT-2)
- Sentinel 2
- Sentinel-5 Percusor
- Silex
- SPOT 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5
- SSOT
- Theos
- TerraSAR-X, TanDEM-X
- VNREDSat-1 (forthcoming)
Science
- BepiColombo
- Cassini-Huygens
- Cluster II
- Gaia mission
- Herschel Space Observatory
- INTEGRAL
- LISA Pathfinder
- Mars Express / Beagle 2
- Rosetta
- Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO)
- Solar Orbiter
- Ulysses
- Venus Express
- XMM-Newton
- NIRSpec
Navigation
- European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS)
- Galileo
