- Symphonie
1963 – 1970: The beginnings
* January 22, 1963: Signature by the President
Charles de Gaulle and the ChancellorKonrad Adenauer of theÉlysée Treaty an agreement forFranco-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 ofearth station s 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: ARequest for Proposals is launched for the Symphonie satellite which was answered by two Franco-Germanconsortia . The leaders respectively areNord Aviation (which was to becomeAerospatiale after merging withSud 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 thecontract and main subcontracts. Setting up the industrial project team inLes Mureaux (Nord Aviation) and the Customer project group inBrétigny-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 industrialPrime contractor ship of the CIFAS consortium which was aEuropean 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 gasattitude control system , harness andpyrotechnics (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 andLampoldshausen )
* 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 qualificationprototype and the second flight model, Symphonie-B (Ottobrunn)Thomson-CSF (France)*
Super high frequency (SHF) antenna Subsystem for the telecommunications payload and theVHF antenna Subsystem for the TT&C (Meudon )
* Manufacture of the TT&C system (Gennevilliers andVélizy-Villacoublay )
* Manufacture of equipment for telecommunicationstransponder s, 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 setSAT (France)
* Solar array Subsystem (
Paris andLannion )
* Manufacture of thetelemetry 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 deCharleroi (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 vehiclesThor Delta 2914 at the price of an agreement with astringent political constraints, since any commercial use of Symphonie is forbidden by theU.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 byvideoconference 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 theIndian Ocean at 49° East where it carries out numerous experimentations, notably withIndia 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, ProfessorHubert 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 ingraveyard 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 andEducation missions
*Technical andscientific 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 betweenUnited Nations headquarters andGeneva and the locations of the UNBlue Helmet squadrons inJerusalem andIsmaïlia , inaugurating the future communication modeVSAT (Very Small Aperture Terminal) using ground antennas with small diameters.
*Educational television inAfrica and especially inCôte d'Ivoire andGabon .
* Intercultural exchanges of tele-working, tele-education, andtele medicine , notably between France andQuebec .
* Occasional service of tele-transmissions (emergency links to disaster areas for theRed Cross , sports reporting, etc.
* Two directional liaisons at high speed betweencomputers – a forerunner to transcontinental data communications and theInternet .
* Synchronization ofatomic clocks at intercontinental scale to obtain a very high stability of universal time, a forerunner to the navigation and positioning satellitesGPS and Galileo.
* Tests at regional scale for mixed analogical and digital television and radiobroadcasting , already! (many countries such asIran , 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 inKolwezi (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:
* Firstcommunications satellites three-axis stabilized ingeostationary orbit
* FirstEurope an 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
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