Shuttle ‘unfair’ to Europeans

Press, 7 March 1984, Page 6

Shuttle ‘unfair’ to Europeans

NZPA-AP Paris The flawless launch of a two-tonne satellite by the European-built Ariane rocket had European space officials calling for an end to American Government subsidies, which they say, make the United States shuttle an unfair competitor in the commercial space race.

Fifteen minutes after blast-off from its launching pad in French Guiana, the three-stage Ariane dumped Intelsat 5 into orbit. The positioning of the SUSS4 million telecommunications satellite was the sixth success in eight Ariane missions, and followed by less than one month the loss of two satellites carried aloft

by the American shuttle Challenger. Geostationary satellites orbit the globe at the same speed as the Earth turns, thereby keeping it in one spot above the Earth.

Arianespace already has orders to launch 27 satellites for 14 customers, five of whom are not European, and expects many more.

Arianespace says that every launch of the reusable shuttle costs ?U5275 million. But the National Aeronautics and Space Administration charges a maximum of JUS2O million to take a

satellite of Intelsat s’s bulk aloft, the Europeans say, and pays the rest of mission costs from funds voted by Congress.