EADS Astrium was a satellite manufacturer and subsidiary of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company, EADS later Airbus. It was formed, as Astrium, in 2000 by the merger of Matra Marconi Space, DaimlerChrysler Aerospace and Computadoras, Redes e Ingeniería. The new company was a joint venture between EADS and BAE Systems until 2003 when the British company sold its stake. This led to the company being reorganised to become EADS Astrium with EADS as its sole shareholder. In 2004 CASA Espacio became part of the company. During 2013 Cassidian and Airbus Military were merged with EADS Astrium during a reorganisation of EADS. This led to the creation of Airbus Defence and Space within the newly created Airbus Group.

Matra Marconi Space was an aerospace company that was a jointly owned by the British General Electric Company (GEC) Group and the French Lagardere Group. Both of these larger companies merged their space and communications divisions, Marconi Space Systems and Matra Espace respectively, to form the new company in 1990. Claude Goumy of Matra was made the first Managing Director with Richard Wignall of Marconi as his deputy. In 1994 the company would acquire British Aerospace Space Systems and Ferranti Satcomms. 1997 would see the company’s Filton site close with some of the personnel being transferred to their Stevenage site and in 1999 British Aerospace would acquire Marconi Electronic Systems from GEC. This would create BAe Systems which replaced GEC as a joint owner of Matra Marconi Space. In 2000 the company merged with the space division of DaimlerChrysler Aerospace AG (DASA) to form Astrium.