Airbus Safran Launchers (ASL), the joint venture launch vehicle and rocket engine manufacturing firm owned by major European space industry players, Airbus Group SE and Safran SA, has announced a major rebranding. From 1st July, the firm will be known as the “ArianeGroup”. This move has been brought to help the group’s international branding and internal coherency.
New logo of the international ArianeGroup. Courtesy of ArianeGroup.
The original ASL firm was created in January 2015, to become the prime manufacturer for the European heavy-lift vehicle, Ariane 5, and its future replacement the Ariane 6.
In 2016, ASL bought the Arianespace shareholding of the French Space Agency CNES (Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales) the Arianespace was thus fully integrated into ASL as an ASL subsidiary. While the launch provider Arianespace was previously the operator and marketer of the Ariane series of launch vehicles, ASL took over the former role, leaving Arianespace primarily as its marketing arm.
The rebranding of ASL to ArianeGroup will affect all the subsidiaries controlled by the group which, apart from Arianespace, also includes the joint German-Russian launch provider Eurockot Launch Services GmbH, Dutch rocket igniter producer Aerospace Propulsion Products BV (APP), French manufacturer of laser and optical comms systems Cilas, French equipment tester and equipment hardeners Nucletudes, French producer of pyrotechnic equipment Pyroalliance and French space equipment producers Sodern.
