MUMBAI: This year's International Astronautical Congress event took place from 17-21 October 2005 in Japan.

A paper on the service introduction of Arianespace's Ariane 5 ECA heavy-lift launcher was included in the technical session. The paper, presented by Arianespace's Laurent Jourdainne, also covered the upcoming phase-in of the Soyuz and Vega launchers at Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana, which - together with Ariane 5 - will offer a family of vehicles capable of carrying "any payload to any orbit, any time."

A reception hosted by Arianespace drew customers, partners, industry colleagues and government space agency managers. In a welcome speech to the invited guests, Arianespace CEO Jean-Yves Le Gal underscored the importance of government agencies in the space industry's development.

"The worlds' space industry was created by governments for government purposes, and commercial space was introduced with two ideas in mind: make government programs more efficient, and allow space technology to trickle down to improve peoples' daily lives," he said.

Le Gall pointed out that despite the industry's fondness for new ideas and commercial initiatives, the current commercial satellite market slump is a reminder that companies must remain humble and improve their existing skills, all while increasing the flexibility of their service to governments and agencies.

Le Gall concluded by saying, "Arianespace has been doing just that. We are improving and streamlining our processes for all of the world's markets. We have established international cooperation to improve the efficiency of our service, and we have come here to Fukuoka to better listed to what you say. We are listening, more than ever, to what governments and space agencies tell us about their needs, in order to satisfy them the best we can."