Photo provided by Arianespace of the launch on December 19, 2013 in Kourou of a Soyuz rocket -

Jm Guillon ESA CNES Arianespace

Despite the coronavirus pandemic, Arianespace carried out 10 launches in 2020 in order to put 166 satellites into orbit.

These figures were released by the company itself on Thursday.

From 250 grams to 6.5 tonnes, these satellites illustrate a trend in the space industry: hundreds are launched each year to improve connections and telecommunications.

Thus, 103 of them are part of the Oneweb constellation, which aims to provide high-speed Internet.

A total of 166 satellites were orbited on #Arianespace missions during 2020 - representing our most ever in a single year!

These spacecraft ranged in size from 250 grams to 6.5 metric tons, further underscoring the flexibility of our launch services offer.

# AE2021 pic.twitter.com/yrgpAO3Gfl

- Stéphane Israël (@arianespaceceo) January 7, 2021

Many business customers

The European space company operates the Ariane 5, Vega and Soyuz launchers.

In 2020, it also put into orbit seven of the ten geostationary telecommunications satellites, positioned 36,000 km from Earth, launched into the world in 2020.

In 2020, 83 of the 114 launches recorded worldwide were dedicated to “institutional” clients (government, army, public bodies).

On the contrary, the activity of Arianespace comprises 92% of an activity devoted to commercial customers.

In particular, the company won seven new contracts for the launch of geostationary satellites.

Launch of a telescope for NASA

In 2021, Arianespace is expected to sign a framework agreement with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Commission for several launches for Galileo (satellite positioning) and Copernicus (Earth observation).

This contract would be in the order of one billion euros, according to Executive President Stéphane Israël.

Arianespace is also due to perform the first flight of the Vega C rocket this year before the inaugural launch of the Ariane 6 heavy launcher. The company aims to perform "at least one launch per month", according to the executive chairman.

But "THE 2021 mission" for him is the launch at the end of October by Ariane 5 of the James-Webb space telescope for NASA, intended to replace Hubble.

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