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SpaceX teams with EADS to go after European launch contracts

By W.J. Hennigan
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Space Exploration Technologies Corp. already counts the U.S. government as a key customer. Now it’s hoping to land rocket launch contracts with European governments.

The Hawthorne-based company, better known as SpaceX, announced Thursday that it would work with EADS Astrium to market launch services to an array of European space agencies through 2015. The deal is for Astrium to market SpaceX’s single-engine Falcon 1 rocket, which can lift small payloads into low-Earth orbit.

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SpaceX says it can develop and launch rockets at a fraction of the cost of the current generation of spacecraft. It is hoping that Astrium, a subsidiary of the French-and-German-owned European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company, also the parent of Airbus, can sell that message overseas.

‘I am proud that such a prominent European leader in space transportation, satellite systems and services would choose to team with SpaceX,’ said Elon Musk, SpaceX’s chief executive, in a statement. ‘Our agreement with Astrium opens exciting new doors for SpaceX.”

The Falcon 1 is SpaceX’s smaller rocket. The company’s larger, nine-engine booster, the Falcon 9, successfully made its maiden flight in June. SpaceX plans to blast it into space again later this year with a cargo capsule, dubbed the Dragon, fixed atop.

NASA has already awarded SpaceX $1.6 billion in contracts for the Falcon 9 and Dragon to transport cargo to the International Space Station, starting as early as next year.

SpaceX hopes that the Dragon might one day carry astronauts into space after the space shuttle program is retired in 2011.

-- W.J. Hennigan

Kwajalein Atoll

Technology Blog
W.J. Hennigan

W.J. Hennigan covered the Pentagon and national security issues from Washington, D.C., before leaving the Los Angeles Times bureau in November 2017. While there, he reported on war, counter-terrorism, and the lives of American service members from more than two dozen countries and previously covered the aerospace and defense industry from Los Angeles. Hennigan earned awards from the National Press Club, the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation, and was a contributor to the Los Angeles Times coverage of the terror attacks in San Bernardino that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2016.

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