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

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.