BERLIN, Germany, March 29, 2007 - Satnews Daily - The European Space Agency (ESA) has signed a $160 million framework contract with OHB-System AG to develop a European Small Geostationary Satellite platform for telecommunication missions. Giuseppe Viriglio, ESA Director of Telecommunications and Navigation, and Professor Manfred Fuchs, CEO of OHB-System, signed this contract.
This contract covers the first part of the Small Geostationary Satellite initiative aimed at the definition of a general-purpose small geostationary satellite platform that will enable European players to compete effectively in the commercial telecommunications market for small platforms.
To achieve this, ESA has set up a new program element under Artes (Advanced Research in Telecommunications Systems). The "Artes 11" program was approved at the ministerial meeting of the ESA Council held in Berlin in December 2005 and eight of the ESA’s member states are currently participants.
Divided into two parts, the program initially involves the development and manufacture of the first flight model of a generic bus. The platform will accommodate a payload mass of up to 300 kg with power consumption of up to 3 kW over a 15-year mission lifetime.
The program subsequently involves the development, manufacture and launch of a first satellite mission to provide flight heritage and in-orbit demonstration for the platform. The mission payload is to be selected by early 2008 under an open tender process. The satellite selected is to be launched in late 2010.
The Small Geostationary Platform is being developed by a consortium headed by the German firm OHB with a core team line-up including LuxSpace (Luxembourg), the Swedish Space Corporation (Sweden) and Oerlikon Space (Switzerland). An industrial cooperation agreement between OHB and these companies was signed on March 28 in Berlin.
With this initiative, ESA is supporting European industry in broadening the product portfolio range on offer on the commercial telecommunication satellite market, by covering a market segment where no optimized European solutions currently exist.
