The signing of the contract should still seek a month

Except for coup de theatre, OHB - le Petit Poucet German space - is set to hit a great second shot, a little more than a month after winning the construction of 14 Galileo satellites. Associated with Thales Alenia Space, joint venture between the French Thales and Italian Finmeccanica, the small family company of Bremen was chosen for the construction of six new generation weather satellites.

Led by the European Space Agency (ESA) on behalf of Eumetsat-l' European organisation which provides weather data to the Member States-, the call for tenders is estimated at EUR 1.5 billion. What makes it one of the largest current space projects. And even if the context is different from that of Galileo, the victory of HBO will sound as a new defeat for EADS Astrium.

Expected last Friday, and then yesterday the official announcement of the outcome of the tender would be now returned to Friday at the earliest, for procedural reasons. Over the past year, the competition gave rise to an intense Franco-German politico-industrielle war, which is not entirely extinguished. According to several sources, the outcome is however more doubt.

The issue The control of the project, that neither Paris nor Berlin wanted to unleash. For the France ask that Thales abandons this role the Group assumed for all weather satellites previously. Not agree, it replies in Berlin: the Germany more than the France contributes to the budget of Eumetsat and master new technology of stabilization of satellites to ensure a higher frequency of making images.

End of 2008 in the Hague, at the last ESA Ministerial Summit, the two countries but agreed to finance MTG ("Meteosat Third Generation", the name of the project) to 34 each. This peace of the brave guaranteed, according to the rules in force within the Agency, that the workload is distributed evenly between the two sides of the Rhine.

Political pressure

For Astrium, no problem, since the subsidiary EADS space is present both in France and Germany. Thales Alenia Space, on the other hand, had to find a German ally and convince themselves that HBO was good at this time. "After several exchanges, our initial doubts are gone", explains internally. The distribution of roles is clear: Thales pilot project, HBO provides satellites, and equipment are divided between the two partners.

The case should proceed normally since the submission of the final bid last summer. But political pressures were such that the Agency has several times postponed its decision. A point that Valérie Pécresse, the Minister of advanced education and research, did not exclude to ask an independent audit ("Les Echos" from January 20). Message repeated manner more week last by Yannick of Roelants, President of the CNES: "Nothing leaves me thinking that the tender was not conducted properly." But rumours of patronage which circulated poisoned the atmosphere .... "This is why we ask an audit", he said, cited by Spacenews.

On the side of Astrium on the other hand, it is difficult to believe in the fairness of the decision of the ESA... In this context, Jean-Jacques Dordain, Director General of the Agency, would have required to make the tour of the capitals for many explain the reasons for the choice of its engineers, before notifying the result of the race to two consortia in the running. The signing of the contract should still seek a month.