France 'eyes EADS Airbus-Safran (Snecma) tie-up for launch rockets'

European aerospace group EADS Airbus and French rocket-maker (Snecma) Safran are looking at jointly making next-generation launch rockets to compete with US firm SpaceX, the French financial newspaper Les Echos said Sunday in a report on its website.

EADS Airbus chief Tom Enders and Safran (Snecma) boss Jean-Paul Herteman are to meet French President Francois Hollande in Paris early Monday, after which a deal is expected to be announced for their companies to jointly manufacture Europe's Ariane 6 rockets, Les Echos said.

The deal was being made because, "despite proven reliability, Ariane suffers from an overly fragmented industrial organisation... that badly hurts its competitiveness" while SpaceX "works in a totally integrated fashion", Les Echos reported.

The Ariane 6 rockets are designed to put single payloads into orbit and are to be cheaper than the heavier and bigger Ariane 5 rockets currently used, which carry two satellites at once.

SpaceX, a private US company, already sends up smaller, cheaper launch rockets and is steadily taking over some launches that NASA used to handle.

United Launch: Alliance Launches Intelsat 14

United Launch Alliance deployed its fourth commercial mission of 2009 as an Atlas V rocket successfully launched the Intelsat 14 (IS-14) commercial telecommunications satellite at 1:55 a.m. EST.

Blasting off from Space Launch Complex-41 here, the launch was provided on behalf of Lockheed Martin Commercial Launch Services, which procured the Atlas V for this mission. Previous ULA commercial launches this year included the Delta IV GOES-O launch for NASA/NOAA on June 27, the Atlas V PAN mission on Sept. 8 and the Delta II WorldView-2 mission Oct. 8.

According to Intelsat, its IS-14 spacecraft will provide high-powered video and data services through its 40 C-band and 22 Ku-band payload to customers throughout the Americas, Europe and Africa. It will replace the Intelsat IS-1R satellite once it's operational.

Intelsat 14 was built by Space Systems/Loral and also hosted a payload for the Internet Router in Space or IRIS program for the Department of Defense.

"ULA congratulates our commercial space partners Intelsat, Lockheed Martin Commercial Launch Services, and Space Systems/Loral on their mission success," said Mark Wilkins, ULA vice president of the Atlas product line.

"ULA also appreciates the dedicated and professional support from the Air Force's Space and Missile Systems Center and 45th Space Wing in the success of the launch. With this launch, nine of the Atlas V's 19 launches since 2002 have been commercial missions, demonstrating the outstanding flexibility of the Atlas V team to support both government and commercial customers."

This mission, designated AV-024, was launched aboard an Atlas V 431 configuration using a Common Core Booster powered by a RD-180 engine, three Aerojet strap-on solid rocket motors, a Centaur upper stage powered by a Pratt and Whitney-manufactured RL10 engine, and a 4-meter diameter fairing. This successful Intelsat-14 launch represents the 35th launch by ULA since it's formation in Dec 2006.

ULA's next launch is the Delta IV Wideband Global SATCOM-3 mission for the Air Force currently scheduled for Dec. 2 with a launch window of 7:21 - 8:53 p.m. EST. The launch will occur from SLC-37 here.