# Arianespace Arianespace is the company that sells and operates Europe's [[Ariane]] rockets. Founded in 1980 by France's space agency and European aerospace firms, it was the world's first commercial launch company: a business set up to sell rides to orbit to anyone who would pay, at a time when launch was still a government monopoly everywhere else. It is headquartered near Paris and launches from the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana. Its chief executive since January 2025 is David Cavaillolès. ## Who owns it: ArianeGroup Arianespace is a subsidiary of **ArianeGroup**, a 50-50 joint venture of Airbus and Safran, two of Europe's biggest defense and aerospace companies. ArianeGroup builds the Ariane 6 rocket, and Arianespace sells and flies it. ArianeGroup also builds the missiles for France's submarine-launched nuclear deterrent, so Europe's commercial rocket and France's nuclear weapons come out of the same industrial house. That overlap is one reason European governments treat launch as a sovereignty question rather than an ordinary business. ## The rise and the squeeze Through the 1980s and 1990s, Arianespace won a large share of the world market for launching commercial communications satellites, including many of the heaviest satellites for [[India]]'s space agency. Its Ariane 5 rocket launched the James Webb Space Telescope in 2021. Then [[SpaceX]] changed the economics. Reusable [[Falcon 9]] rockets undercut expendable rockets on price, and Arianespace's share of the commercial market shrank through the 2010s. Ariane 6, which first flew in 2024, was designed to be cheaper than Ariane 5, but it is still thrown away after each flight. Its biggest commercial customer is [[Amazon]], which booked 18 Ariane 6 launches for its [[Amazon Leo]] satellite-internet network, the main Western competitor to [[Starlink]]. ## The Russian break For a decade, Arianespace also sold launches on Russian [[Soyuz]] rockets, flown from both Kourou and Russia's [[Baikonur Cosmodrome]]. That ended abruptly in early 2022. After [[Russia]] invaded [[Ukraine]] and Europe imposed sanctions, Russia pulled its launch teams out of Kourou. On 2 March 2022, Russian space chief Dmitry Rogozin said a scheduled launch of satellites for the UK-backed internet company [[OneWeb]] would not go ahead unless the British government sold its stake and OneWeb guaranteed its satellites would never be used for military purposes. OneWeb refused, and its satellites were left behind in Kazakhstan. On 4 March, Arianespace suspended all Soyuz launches. OneWeb finished building its network on rockets from [[SpaceX]] and from India's space agency. For Europe, the episode was a clear demonstration that a launch partner can become a political weapon overnight. ## A shrinking franchise Arianespace no longer controls all of Europe's launches. In late 2025, the [[European Space Agency]] approved moving commercial sales of the smaller Vega C rocket from Arianespace to its Italian builder, Avio. ESA is also funding a new generation of European rocket startups through its launcher competition. The company that invented commercial launch is now one of several European players, all competing against SpaceX. ## Why it's on the map Arianespace is the commercial side of Europe's bet on independent access to space. Its history shows what happened to a state-backed launch company when one American firm, owned by [[Elon Musk]], took over the market. Its Russian business shows how quickly a launch partnership can turn into political leverage. And its ownership shows how closely Europe's civilian rockets and its nuclear-missile industry are tied together. ## See also - [[Ariane]] — the rockets Arianespace sells - [[European Space Agency]] — the agency that funds them - [[Soyuz]] · [[Baikonur Cosmodrome]] — the Russian partnership that ended in 2022 - [[SpaceX]] · [[Starlink]] · [[Amazon]] — the competition and the customers - [[Roscosmos]] — the Russian partner that cut Europe off - [[Indian Space Research Organisation]] — the launch provider OneWeb turned to after Russia - [[Space Hub]] — the parent hub