Alcatel Space : the new satellite market

If the Wall Street Journal mentions discussions between Alcatel Space and Boeing, Jean-Claude Husson, CEO of Alcatel Space, in an interview given to La Tribune, at the occasion of the “Salon du Bourget”, announces a cooperation with the other big European group, Astrium and a wish to work in partnership with Alenia. We wish to develop technologies in order to own an important platform of communication satellites which can run the equivalent of 60 up to 100 television networks. It will need a lot of efforts in research and development at Atrium’s and Alcatel’s but also at Aliena’s, says the daily paper (on the paper edition of June 20th 2001 or by Internet subscription)."Behind all of this, the applications to the Internet and the multimedia domain, as well as the growing demand of the needs in this field have to be taken into account. That’s why, when mentioning a market of 35 satellites per year, concerning four or five years, you have to know that the satellites are much more powerful than nowadays, and for which the weight will reach about seven tonnes, for a maximum of 5 tonnes nowadays.”