November 1982:the French space program

Introduction

French national space policy was reviewed in its entirety at the time of the European Council meeting in October 1981 which authorised the following new programmes: Ariane IV, ERS 1, Spacelab follow-on development, Microgravity and SPOT 2. The French also agreed to the setting up of the SPOT Image company and to provide further funding in support of export activities.

The 1982 Budget

The French national space agency (CNES) budget for 1982 amounts to 3,018.303 million francs (MF) against 2,538.106 MF for the initial 1981 budget, representing an increase of some 18.7 per cent. Within this, the total state subsidy for 1982 is 2,545.485 MF, broken down into 2,218.370 MF for programme appropiations and 327.115 MF operating subsidy.

Trends within the budget itself show that the French national programme is now receiving 20.9 per cent of the money, compared to only 8.7 per cent in 1980, and the figure for multilateral cooperation has decreased from over half to 31.7 per cent. This continues the effort to restore the balance between multilateral and the national and bilateral programmes started in previous years.

The French national programme budget for 1982 shows an increase of more than 80 per cent over 1981, mainly due to the Earth Observation Test Satellite (SPOT) programme for which expenditure will peak this year. Launching and positioning of the SPOT 1 satellite in a Sun-synchronous orbit by an Ariane launch vehicle is planned for 1984. Its main task will be to explore Earth resources, detect and forecast climatology- and oceanology-related phenomena and to monitor natural phenomena and activities. In October 1981 the setting up of SPOT Image was approved, a commercial organisation with a majority state holding for the marketing of SPOT data.

In the applications field the French national communications satellite programme, approved in 1979, is designed to enable the Telecommunications and Post Office Administration to meet growing domestic requirements for conventional services and to provide new services.

CNES

CNES contributes to launch vehicle funding and the General Telecommunications Authority provides the bulk of the expenditure. Ariane is scheduled to launch TELECOM 1A in July 1983 and TELECOM 1B the following October. France is the major contributor to the Ariane launcher project. The 1982 budget allocation is for some 290 million Francs.

ESA

Funds allocated to the national space programme (excluding research and development) amount to 628.650/MF, broken down into 6.200 MF for science; 16.100 MF for 'telecommunications, 590.750 MF for Earth observation and 15.600 MF for space vehicles. There is a total of 95.050 MF for research and development to cover such programmes as the Solaris system, a project consisting of a permanent station, an Earth-to-orbit station and a maintenance module. Studies will also be made of a geostationary data relay system and the use of automatic in-orbit intervention and robotics. The 1982 CNES budget allocates a total of 475.850 MF to bilateral cooperation, funding which is within 1.9 per cent of the previous year’s figure after 1981 ’s sharp rise.

In addition to cooperation with the rest of Europe and N ASA in various scientific and applications projects there is considerable Franco-Soviet interaction. In fact, under this heading 14.000 MF alone is allocated to the joint Franco-Soviet manned flight, a mission to put the first French astronaut in space onboard a Salyut space station by the middle of this year. Another joint venture with the Russians is the Venus exploration project (VEGA), which since modification in October 1980 consists of a Venus lander and also a probe to Halley’s Comet. The scheduled launch date is in 1984 for a rendezvous with Venus in 1985 and Halley’s Comet in 1986.

Halley’s Comet comes in for further study under French cooperation with ESA, the European Space Agency, and experiments being carried on the Giotto probe due to be launched by Ariane II in July 1985. French laboratories will take part in experiments involving photographing the comet with a multispectral camera, study of chemical composition of neutral and ionised gases by mass spectrometry, study of the comet’s ionised environment, and study of the comet dust by photo-polarimetry.

French experiments will also be flown in the first Spacelab payload, at present planned for launch by the Space Shuttle in September 1983. These experiments cover the fields of material sciences, atmospheric physics, biology and astronomy.

In addition to a few scientific experiments, mainly concerning auroral physics, material science and interferometry, cooperation with the Federal Republic of Germany is being developed in the communications sector with the Symphonie direct broadcasting programmes. This project provides for the production of two geostationary satellites, one for each country, and the launch of the French satellite by Ariane will take place in 1985.

Funds allocated under the heading of European multilateral cooperation also cover the French contribution to the various ESA programmes and, apart from the Ariane launch vehicle (which is due to receive 290.40 MF from a planned 951.55 MF contribution), the European programmes include both appli¬ cations and scientific projects, as well as Spacelab. If Ariane and Spacelab are included, the applications programmes rep¬ resent about 80 per cent of this contribution. TheAriane programme,, undertaken in 1973 with CNES as the prime contractor, is already proving to be a major competitor to American launch systems, including the Shuttle, and should ensure Europe’s independence as regards launch facilities for the next decade.

In the telecommunications field the launch by Ariane of the first ECS system, designed to provide long distance telephone, telegraph and telex links inside Europe, as well as “Eurovision” type television programme exchange, is planned for the second half of 1982.

Earth observation programmes which fall in the cooperation with' ESA category include Sirio 2, a meteorological data and clock synchronisation experiment, due for launch in the first half of this year, and ERS 1, a scientifically-orientated pro¬ gramme focussed on research into climatology, oceanography, glaciology and marine biology, which will complement fields already covered by SPOT. The first launch is planned for 1987.

Among other ESA projects receiving French support are Exosat, the European X-ray observatory satellite planned for launch later this year; the American Space Telescope solar arrays, faint object camera and photon detector; and Hipparcos, the astrometry satellite designed to determine the trigonometric parallaxes, proper motions and positions of 100,000 stars.