ARIANESPACE TO FOCUS ON THE LAUNCHER FAMILY IN 2009

Arianespace confirmed its position as the world’s leading commercial launch provider in 2008, and will build upon that success this year with a focus on its expanded family of launch vehicles. Six to eight Ariane 5 launches are slated in 2009, with payloads such as the European Space Agency’s Herschel astronomy space telescope and the organization’s Planck cosmic background mapping satellite – as well as Terrestar-1, one of the world’s largest commercial communications satellites.