French launch monster Arianespace is breaking out of a four-month standdown of its commercial launching operations with a flurry of launch preparation and an announcement that it is ordering 20 new Ariane 5 rockets from European manufacturers. The new batch of rockets will be more powerful than previous generations, and feature more versatility in their ability to deliver multiple satellites to different orbits.

The upgrades will keep the company in the lead in the global fight for customers, an Arianespace spokesperson told space.com today. The first corporation to offer commercial launch services, Arianespace remains the worldwide commercial-launch leader. Birgit Zacher, director of communications for Arianespace in Washington, said the new Ariane orders are necessary to meet the needs of clients and maintain Arianespace's current business operations.

The firm will face increased competition in the coming several years as other launch companies expand, but Zacher emphasized that the upgrades are business as usual for Arianespace. "There is increased competition, but we aren't necessarily threatened by that," Zacher said.

The announcement of new orders comes at a time when Arianespace seems insistent on pulling itself out of its recent launch malaise. The company has been harassed since April by payload-delivery delays that have forced it to postpone launches from its Kourou Spaceport in French Guyana. The new orders have the ring of exclamatory footstomp punctuating the determination to get back to the business of firing rockets into space.

Now the company is back, with plans for 10 launches before the end of the year. The series is scheduled to begin Aug. 4 with the launch of an Indonesian telecommunications satellite. Telkom 1 was originally scheduled to ride as a passenger spacecraft aboard an Ariane 5 in April. That rocket's main payload was to be WorldSpace's AsiaStar, but a problem with that satellite's solar panels left the AsiaStar bound to the ground. Now the WorldSpace satellite will not be launched until December at the earliest.

Instead of waiting any longer, Arianespace is putting the Telkom 1 aboard a smaller rocket, and launching it first thing next month. It will follow that with a launch on Aug. 26 of a Korean telecommunications satellite.

The new Ariane 5s, which will be used between 2001 and 2004, will boast the ability to heft a 22,000-pound (9,900-kilogram) payload into geostationary orbit. In the same class with the Ariane 5 is Lockheed Martin's Atlas V rocket (which can deliver an 18,200-pound payload into geostationary orbit) and Boeing's hefty Delta IV Heavy (designed to lift 29,100 pounds into the same orbit).