U.S. Export
Constraints Impacting U.S. Content In Alenia Aerospazio Satellites
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Alenia Aerospazio,
Rome, is concerned that U.S. technology export laws may delay
delivery of satellite components provided by U.S. suppliers for
Atlantic Bird 1. Alenia Aerospazio signed a contract with Eutlesat
in June 1999 to deliver the  Atlantic
Bird 1 spacecraft by June 2001. Alenia Aerospazio later signed a
contract with China Great Wall Industries to launch the satellite
on a Long March 3A.
Using the Chinese
Long March has resulted in delivery delays of U.S. built
components for Atlantic Bird 1. Honeywell, supplier of reaction
wheel assemblies, has stated that it is confident that they can
secure the required export licenses in time to meet Alenia
Aerospazio’s delivery schedule. Alenia Aerospazio is “not
going to provide the Chinese with detailed information about the
satellite beyond what they need to launch it.”
Alenia Aerospazio
has already “drastically reduced” its purchase of satellite
components from U.S suppliers, and will likely continue to switch
to European or Japanese suppliers. Price and quality are not at
issue, but rather availability and assurance of delivery. Alenia
Aerospazio concedes that it is expensive to switch suppliers
because it requires requalification of the design with the new
components. Once a requalification has been undertaken, it is
unlikely that a switch back to the original supplier would occur.
Communication
satellites are not technology driven products, and what matters to
Alenia Aerospazio is, “time to delivery, overall system cost and
reliability…satellites are not on the frontiers of
technology.” Alenia Aerospazio supplies components to U.S.
companies, as well as purchases components from U.S. companies.
However, Alenia Aerospazio expects that if U.S. export constraints
continue, and confidence is not restored in delivery reliability,
that sooner or later Alenia Aerospazio built satellites would
contain zero U.S. parts.
Alenia Aerospazio
has benefited from the U.S. satellite export constraints, winning
the contract to provide the satellite bus for Canada’s Radarsat
2 – after the Canadian government dropped a potential U.S.
supplier from the competition because of export related concerns.
Alenia Aerospazio doubts they would have won the contract if not
for the export problem issues.
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