Successful launch of the climatology Calipso satellite, integrated by Alcatel Alenia Space

Paris, April 28, 2006 - Alcatel Alenia Space announced today the successful launch of the Calipso climatology satellite, based on its Proteus platform and integrated in its French sites. The satellite was launched by a Delta 2 rocket on April 28, 2006 at 3:02 a.m. PDT from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, along with the Cloudsat satellite.

Calipso and Cloudsat will join the "A-Train" formation of satellites, designed to study the Earth’s climate. Calipso is the second application to use the Proteus satellite platform, developed by Alcatel Alenia Space in conjunction with French space agency CNES. The first application, the Jason-1 oceanographic altimetry satellite, celebrated its fourth anniversary of in-orbit service in December 2005. The Poseidon altimeter on the Jason satellite supplies a continuous stream of essential oceanography data.

"We are very proud of our role on Calipso, which consolidates our increasing involvement in low-orbit climatology missions" said Patrick Mauté, head of optical observation and science programs at Alcatel Alenia Space. "We already make a major contribution to all oceanography, climatology and meteorology applications through our broad-based expertise, anchored in two complementary areas of excellence: observation platforms, and very-high-precision microwave and optical sensors"

Patrick Mauté added: "This successful launch is the fruit of very productive collaboration between Alcatel Alenia Space, CNES and NASA. This is the recognition of Alcatel Alenia Space as a major player in a global climate study program"

A press kit is available at following link: http://www.alcatelaleniaspace.com/

About Alcatel Alenia Space
Alcatel Alenia Space is the European leader in satellite systems, at the forefront of orbit infrastructures. Created in July 2005, the company brings together the vast experience and know-how of Alcatel Space and Alenia Spazio to form a new leading force in European space technology. Alcatel Alenia Space represents a worldwide standard for space development that impacts everybody’s future: from navigation to telecommunications, from meteorology to environmental monitoring, from defense to science and observation. Alcatel Alenia Space is an Alcatel (Paris: CGEP.PA and NYSE: ALA) (67%) and Finmeccanica (Milan:SIFI.MI, FNC.IM) (33%) company.

About Alcatel
Alcatel provides communications solutions to telecommunication carriers, Internet service providers and enterprises for delivery of voice, data and video applications to their customers or employees. Alcatel brings its leading position in fixed and mobile broadband networks, applications and services, to help its partners and customers build a user-centric broadband world. With sales of EURO 13.1 billion and 58,000 employees in 2005, Alcatel operates in more than 130 countries.

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Régine Coqueran

Corporate Media Relations

Alcatel

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