PARIS — The French arms-procurement agency, DGA, will be taking a closer look at its 190 million euro ($205 million) annual investment in space programs because of concern about financial disorganization at the French space agency, CNES, according to DGA officials.
CNES, which reports to both the French research and defense ministries, has been given the responsibility for handling much of France’s military-space investment. That investment averages 190 million euros per year and is used mainly to oversee development of French observation satellites.
In the past, this investment has been sent to CNES without much oversight by DGA into how the money is spent, according to Laurent Collet-Billon, deputy DGA director for armaments systems.
"There has been some opposition" by CNES in the past to DGA involvement in the spending details, Collet-Billon said here March 19 during a press briefing on DGA’s financial and program results for 2002. "The reaction has been, ‘This is in my budget and I do what I want,’ with a couple of exceptions."
But following a government-ordered review in January that found CNES’s financial management lacking in both clarity and foresight, DGA officials said they plan to take a more active oversight to assure that the close financial management they apply to their own program also is applied to programs managed by CNES.
"We will be looking closely into how this money is spent, to assure that it is managed in an intelligent way," Collet-Billon said.
DGA, which placed contracts valued at 11.8 billion euros in 2002, has placed the accent in recent years on trimming its overhead charges and on financial accountability. Its annual statements on its activity have taken on the character, and the language, of a private company reporting to shareholders.
DGA Director Yves Gleizes said he is particularly proud of the fact that DGA as an organization has been given the ISO 9001 certification, an internationally recognized measure of organizational effectiveness.
The government report on CNES’s activities also urged that French defense authorities increase their space spending. DGA officials gave no impression that such an increase would be forthcoming.
But Gleizes said Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie and Research Minister Claudie Haignere would soon present a reorganization of CNES, including a possible restructuring of the French military’s space effort. That effort, while far and away Europe’s biggest in terms of spending and breadth, has declined in recent years.
DGA is currently managing two large space-hardware development programs.
The $2 billion Helios 2 optical reconnaissance satellite program, being built by a consortium led by Astrium SAS, is scheduled to be placed into operation as early as 2005. It will succeed the two Helios-1 satellites currently in orbit. CNES is considered the prime contractor to DGA for Helios-2 management. The first Helios-2 launch will also feature the launch of the four small Essaim signals-intelligence satellites, also being built by Astrium.
The Syracuse-3 military telecommunications satellite program, contracted directly between DGA and Alcatel Space, is also in development and scheduled for launch in 2004.
Collet-Billon said DGA is concerned that CNES’s financial troubles threaten the Pleiades optical high-resolution satellite program, a two-satellite effort that is supposed to be France’s contribution to a French-Italian system for civil and military Earth observation.
The government report analyzing CNES’s prospects said Pleiades was not assured of funding despite the fact that the French and Italian heads of state had agreed to the program, which includes Italy’s Cosmo-Skymed radar satellites.
DGA is not financing Pleiades, but Collet-Billon said some of DGA’s annual payments to CNES could be earmarked for Pleiades if it is necessary to save the effort. "This program is important to us," he said.
Collet-Billon also said DGA expects to sign a contract this year for a small demonstrator satellite to detect missile launches. The launch would be in 2006. That program is an example of DGA’s decision to use demonstrators to test sought-after capabilities and verify the relevant technologies before building full-scale programs. The missile-warning satellite’s total budget is expected to be no more than 50 million euros.
