Symphonie

The Symphonie satellites [http://www.theleme.net/aaaf-ca/148.pdf AAAF Conference: From Symphonie to Spacebus, March 2006, by Jean-Jacques Dechezelles] ] are the first communications satellites built by France and Germany and the first in the world which were three-axis stabilized on geostationary orbit. They are the result of an exemplary program of cooperation between France and Germany.

1963 – 1970: The beginnings

* January 22, 1963: Signature by the President Charles de Gaulle and the Chancellor Konrad Adenauer of the Élysée Treaty an agreement for Franco-German cooperation. Beginning of preliminary studies in France (SAROS project) and in Germany (Olympia project) of communications satellites.
* June 1967: The governments of the two countries sign an intergovernmental convention concerning the launch and exploitation of an experimental telecommunication satellite, Symphonie, as well as the development and construction of earth stations necessary for the control of the satellites. Formation of a Franco-German Board of Directors and an Executive Committee. The committee is headed by two executive secretaries, one German and the other French. Belgium joins the program.
* 1967 – 1968: A Request for Proposals is launched for the Symphonie satellite which was answered by two Franco-German consortia. The leaders respectively are Nord Aviation (which was to become Aerospatiale after merging with Sud Aviation) for the consortium CIFAS (Consortium Industrial Franco-Allemande pour le satellite Symphonie), and Matra Space for the competing consortium. The CIFAS consortium was selected after the evaluation of the bids and undertook, according to the terms of the consultation, a rounding out of the various roles attributed to the French and German firms in charge of the electronic activities.
* 1969: Beginning of a preliminary definition phase of the satellite and negotiation of the contract and main subcontracts. Setting up the industrial project team in Les Mureaux (Nord Aviation) and the Customer project group in Brétigny-sur-Orge (CNES). Production of the mission specifications, the satellite specifications and the specifications for the control and exploitation segments.

Industrial Organization

Within the bilateral (CNES – GfW) French-German contract, and under industrial Prime contractorship of the CIFAS consortium which was a European economic interest grouping under French law and composed of 6 companies (three French and three German) the responsibilities were as follows:

Aerospatiale (France)

*Consortium leader and host of the integrated project team in its centre at Les Mureaux
* Structures and Thermal Control Subsystems and manufacture of all associated panels, mechanisms, thermal hardware and antenna reflectors (Cannes Space Centre)
* Manufacture of the cold gas attitude control system, harness and pyrotechnics (Les Mureaux)
* Integration of the mechanical and thermal models (Cannes)
* Integration of the electrical identification model and the first flight model, Symphonie-A (Les Mureaux)

Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm (MBB) (RFA)

* Attitude and Orbit Control Subsystem (AOCS) (Ottobrunn, near Munich)
* Manufacture of the hot gas (bi-propellant) thrusters system (Ottobrunn and Lampoldshausen)
* Apogee motor (bi-propellant) Subsystem (Ottobrunn and Lampoldshausen)
* Mechanical ground support equipment for integration and transport
* Contribution of the electrical test sets
* Integration of the qualification prototype and the second flight model, Symphonie-B (Ottobrunn)

Thomson-CSF (France)

* Super high frequency (SHF) antenna Subsystem for the telecommunications payload and the VHF antenna Subsystem for the TT&C (Meudon)
* Manufacture of the TT&C system (Gennevilliers and Vélizy-Villacoublay)
* Manufacture of equipment for telecommunications transponders, local oscillators and frequency conversion.
* Electronic test system EGSE level 1 for ground testing (integration phase and preparation for flight).

Siemens AG (RFA)

* SHF C-band telecommunications transponder Subsystem (Munich)
* Manufacture of equipment for telecommunication transponders, receiving section and intermediary frequency amplification (Munich)
* Contribution of the electrical test set

SAT (France)

* Solar array Subsystem (Paris and Lannion)
* Manufacture of the telemetry encoder (Paris)
* Contribution to the electrical test sets

= AEG-Telefunken (RFA) =

* Regulated electric power supply Subsystem (Wedel, near Hamburg)
* Manufacture of equipment for the telecommunications transponders, transmission section (Backnang near Stuttgart, and Ulm)
* Manufacture of SHF modulators and demodulators for the on-board telemetry and telecommand
* Contribution to the electrical test sets.

Other major contributions

* The six CIFAS companies participated in the integrated project team with detached personnel, the Head of the Project team being Pierre Madon (Aerospatiale).
* Belgium officially contributed to the project and its industry was present, notably with the Ateliers de Constructions Electriques de Charleroi (ACEC) with the space division of ETCA supplier of the DC-DC converters for the electric power supply; and SAIT for the EGSE test computers.
* French and German equipment manufacturers contributed under contract to the consortium members, notably Sodern, SAFT, Crouzet and Starec in France and Teldix and VFW in Germany.
* Major test facilities used for the qualification and acceptance tests: space environment simulation: SOPEMEA, a subsidiary of CNES (Toulouse), and [http://de.wikipedia.org:wiki/IABG IABG] (Ottobrunn)
* Calibration of telecommunications performance: Centre National d’Etudes des Telecommunications [http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centre_national_d%27%C3%A9tudes_des_t%C3%A9l%C3%A9communications CNET] (La Turbie).

1970: Development of the satellites

* 1970 – 1971: Beginning of the development program of the Symphonie satellites, for which the contract is signed by General Robert Aubinière, Director General of CNES, and Dr. Mayer, representing the German ministry [http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundesministerium_fA1/4_Wissenschaft_und_Forschung Bundesministerium für Wissenschaft und Forschung] (BMWF). It is notable that the CIFAS consortium, organized as a European economic interest grouping and whose administrator at the time was Charles Cristofini, went through several restructurings with the creation of Thomson-CSF, MBB (Messerschmitt Bolkow Blohm) AEG Telefunken and Aerospatiale.
* 1972: The failure of the Europe II launch vehicle and the abandoning of that program which had been led by ELDO provoked a crisis. Should one continue to develop the satellites, and if so how to launch it? After various hesitations at high up governmental level, the program continues. The satellites will be launched by American satellites launch vehicles Thor Delta 2914 at the price of an agreement with astringent political constraints, since any commercial use of Symphonie is forbidden by the U.S. State Department.
* 1973: Integration of the test and qualification model of the satellite.
* 1974: Integration in Les Mureaux of the first flight model, Symphonie-A, and delivery of the satellite.

Launching of the satellites

Symphonie-A is successfully launched from the Kennedy Space Centre on December 19, 1974 at 2:39 a.m. UT.

* 1975: January 12, President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing of France, and the Germany Chancellor, Helmut Schmidt exchange their New Year greeting live and by videoconference via the Symphonie-A satellite at station on geostationary orbit. Symphonie-A is the first geostationary telecommunications satellite built and operated in Europe. Some of its technologies constitute world’s firsts.
* After integration at MBB in Ottobrunn and subsequent delivery, Symphonie-B is successfully launched from Kennedy Space Centre on August 27, 1975 at 1:42 a.m. UT.
* The two satellites are positioned in geostationary orbit at 11.5° West and perfectly fulfil their mission (two coverage zones, Euro-African and America, can fully benefit from 4 wide band transponders with 90 MHz each) and are the stars of the 1975 Geneva Telecom Show.
* 1977–1979: Starting in June 1977 and four for 2 years, Symphonie-A is repositioned over the Indian Ocean at 49° East where it carries out numerous experimentations, notably with India and China.
* From February 4–7, 1980: An international Colloquium is held in Berlin concerning the technical and operational results of the program. Among the numerous presentations, Professor Hubert Curien, then President of CNES, declared in brief “Symphonie is the father of Ariane”, since it served as catalyst for the European decision to develop a heavy launch vehicle.
* August 12, 1983: Symphonie-A makes its final orbital manoeuvre to a cemetery orbit and is de-activated after about 8 and a half years of service.
* December 19, 1984: ten years exactly after the launch of Symphonie-A, Symphonie-B is also de-activated and placed in graveyard orbit after 9 years of active service. The operations of Symphonie thus functioned successfully over double the period nominally planned, demonstrated by hundreds of experiments and all kinds of civil exploitations than one could expect from space telecommunications.

Usage of the Symphonie Satellites

Usage of Symphonie and the forerunner character for numerous telecommunication services, the prohibiting of commercial use of Symphonie, and this is a paradoxical consequence, probably induced the greatest program for experimentation of space telecommunications ever devised as to the number of participating countries as well as to the extreme diversity of the field of applications. To give an idea of the extent of the utilization, 40 countries participated in links via the Symphonie A and B satellites (from West to East and from North to South), from Quebec to Argentina, from Finland to Reunion Island, from China to Indonesia. The Symphonies A and B experiments can be placed in two major themes:
* Humanitarian, Cultural and Education missions
* Technical and scientific missions.

To these themes certain utilizations of an operational character can be added, notably for links between metropolitan France and its over-seas departments for telephony and television via satellite. From this point of view, Symphonie was a forerunner of the French national programs, Telecom-1 & 2, TDF 1 & 2, and German programs TV-SAT and DFS Kopernikus. The wide band transponders, by the flexibility of their operation, made it possible to test all access techniques (single or multiple) and modulation: FDMA (frequency sharing) TDMA (time sharing), SSMA (Spectre spreading). The Symphonie Earth stations of various diameters (from 16 to 2.2 meters), fixed, transportable, mobile, greatly contributed to the renown of the programme around the world. To mention only a few examples of demonstrations:
* The link between United Nations headquarters and Geneva and the locations of the UN Blue Helmet squadrons in Jerusalem and Ismaïlia, inaugurating the future communication mode VSAT (Very Small Aperture Terminal) using ground antennas with small diameters.
* Educational television in Africa and especially in Côte d'Ivoire and Gabon.
* Intercultural exchanges of tele-working, tele-education, and tele medicine, notably between France and Quebec.
* Occasional service of tele-transmissions (emergency links to disaster areas for the Red Cross, sports reporting, etc.
* Two directional liaisons at high speed between computers – a forerunner to transcontinental data communications and the Internet.
* Synchronization of atomic clocks at intercontinental scale to obtain a very high stability of universal time, a forerunner to the navigation and positioning satellites GPS and Galileo.
* Tests at regional scale for mixed analogical and digital television and radio broadcasting, already! (many countries such as Iran, India and China).

One occasion of demonstrating the capacity of Symphonie in the domain, today qualified as mission of Security and Crisis Management by the European Union (GMES) was not taken. It could easily have been satisfied in 1978 in Kolwezi (intervention of French troops in Zaire to protect Europeans living in the Katanga province) if the French chiefs of staff had used it following the UN example mentioned before instead of calling upon logistical support from the United States.

Fallout from the Symphonie Program

The ten-years of service of Symphonie largely accredited the maturity and reliability of space techniques at a period when telecommunications operators were thinking in terms of cables and ground micro-wave links. After Intelsat which was pioneer and operator for intercontinental telephony mainly, Symphonie opened the way and led to the springing up of numerous regional systems with varied applications combining tele-distribution, tele-education and reliable radio-electrical access to zones with no ground infrastructure, isolated areas, or zones with low population density. It is also justified to add, on the human level, the Symphonie program was a “training program” because it trained many engineers, operators and satellite users, who acquired their high qualifications through this program, then spread their know-how on the European and international levels.

Afterwards, new European programs could follow and enable Europe to obtain excellence in the field of space telecommunications. The technical success of this precursor program, the demonstration in orbit of the quality of technologies born in Europe, the excellence of diverse uses to the benefit of numerous countries and communities, all these elements make Symphonie one of the major bases of Europe’s success in the domain of space.

Finally, on the industrial level, it helped launch Europe in major space programs and participated in the beginning of big industrial restructuring which transformed national industries into European groups. Most of the Symphonie industrial partners contributed to the start up of the Spacebus programs with numerous commercial applications in space communications and direct-to-home TV broadcasting.

Records

Symphonie was the:
* First communications satellites three-axis stabilized in geostationary orbit
* First European communications satellites.

Sources

* See the [http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphonie_%28Satellite%29 French version] as reference
* 80 years of passion, the Cannes Centre from 1919 to 1999, "Editions Version Latine 1999, France".
* 1969 to 1975, the first steps of Symphonie, [http://eurespace.online.fr/Bulletin/symphony.htm Space Corner] , Eurospace
* Jean-Jacques Dechezelles, "Technical presentation of the Symphonie Satellite", [http://www.cannes-aero-patrimoine.net/pdf/pubmemb/jjd_symphonie_factsheet.pdf Cannes-aero-patrimoine]

Footnotes