The flurry of year-end activity followed an assessment by ESA’s finance directorate that the agency’s cash deficit, which had been estimated at up to 400 million euros by late 2010, is likely to be much less severe.
ESA officials have concluded that they do not need to take out a loan to cover the shortfall and that if the agency faces liquidity issues next year, they can be handled by less-drastic means as they arise.
As a result, ESA officials have reopened their checkbooks to settle a pile of already-negotiated contracts that been growing since the mid-November moratorium on any new commitments valued at more than 10 million euros.
Among the most significant contracts signed are for duplicate models of the three Sentinel Earth observation satellites being built by ESA and the 27-nation European Union as part of the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) program. The contracts were signed with the same companies building the so-called Sentinel A-units.
The Sentinel 1B satellite, carrying C-band radar, will be built by Thales Alenia Space Italy for 128.8 million euros, compared with 229 million euros for the identical Sentinel 1A spacecraft contracted in June 2007.
Sentinel 2B, carrying a superspectral imager, will be built by Astrium Satellites under a contract valued at 98.6 million euros, compared with 195 million euros for the Sentinel 2A spacecraft, contracted in April 208.
Sentinel 3B, carrying an ocean-altimetry mission, will be built by Thales Alenia Space France under a 143.1-million-euro contract. The Sentinel 3A contract, signed in April 2008, was valued at 305 million euros.
ESA Earth Observation Director Volker Liebig said in a Dec. 18 interview that the three contracts could have been delayed until 2010 without affecting the program schedule, but that the prime contractors’ price proposals included a Dec. 31 deadline. Meeting that deadline, Liebig said, will ensure that the contractors take maximum advantage of being able to build two sets of instruments rather than one.
ESA’s launcher division was also active, signing contracts for a proposed Ariane 5 rocket upgrade that features a new, restartable motor called Vinci.
Antonio Fabrizi, ESA’s launcher director, said Dec. 18 that the agency signed a 157-million-euro contract with Astrium Space Transportation of Les Mureaux, France, for what is called the Ariane 5 Midlife Evolution program. The contract covers two years of work by Astrium, motor-builder Snecma and the other Ariane 5 contractors to conduct reviews of the proposed new upper stage.
ESA government ministers will be asked in late 2011 or early 2012 to approve full-scale development of the Vinci-powered stage, which is designed to increase Ariane 5’s payload carrying power to 12,000 kilograms into geostationary-transfer orbit, the destination of most telecommunications satellites.
Fabrizi also signed a contract with Thales Alenia Space Italy for the Intermediate Experimental Vehicle (IXV), a 5-meter-long, 1,800-kilogram winged vehicle scheduled to test atmospheric re-entry technologies following a launch aboard Europe’s Vega rocket in 2012 or 2013. The contract is valued at 39.4 million euros to cover preliminary IXV work for 18 months, Fabrizi said.