A report in Space News reveals that French export officials have prevented export of French-developed flight control software that was intended for the Vega rocket. The Vega rocket, a joint launch vehicle project of the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency, is destined for Arianespace SA. As you probably know, Arianespace SA is a French company founded in 1980 as the first private launch company. France also is a 15 percent participant in the Vega rocket program, making France the largest participant in the program after Italy, which is a 65 percent participant.

France did grant an exemption for the software to be used on the first flight and possibly on the second flight depending upon the status of development of new software to replace the yanked French software. Apparently all involved in the Vega program were blindsided by the French action:

[ESA Launcher Director Antonio] Fabrizi said he is not certain exactly what transpired in the case of the Vega flight-control system. Other French technology, in particular the filament-wound P-80 first stage, was subject to export approval and received authorization without a hitch.

“I have been told that it could have been a problem with the way the export license application was made, or its timing,” Fabrizi said.

Although French bureaucratic stubbornness is second to none, I’m not buying Fabrizi’s story that the French blocked export of the flight control forever because the application was too late or violated some procedural rule. More likely, the French stopped the export because of the technology itself.

That France denied the export even though it is knee-deep in the Vega program itself is perplexing. The only conclusion that can be drawn from this is that the United States isn’t the only country that has used export controls to shoot itself in its own foot.

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