Astrium to build future optical reconnaissance satellites for French Armed Forces

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Helios 2B (illustration)

Contract worth € 795 million - Two new military observation satellites for France, with an option for a third

17:45 GMT, December 3, 2010 Paris | CNES, the French space agency, has notified Astrium that the DGA, the French arms procurement agency, has awarded the company a € 795 million contract for two satellites for the optical space component (CSO) that will replace the current HELIOS 2 military observation satellites. The first satellite is scheduled to enter orbit in December 2016. The contract also includes an option for a third satellite.

As prime contractor for the CSO satellites programme, Astrium will provide the agile platform and avionics, and will also be responsible for the integration work, testing and delivery of the satellites to CNES. Thales Alenia Space will provide Astrium with the very-high resolution optical instrument.

100 times more powerful with 30% less costs

Astrium will be making use of new technology to deliver satellites that are 100 times more powerful than the current generation, all at reduced costs. Astrium has drawn on the latest technological advances and operational feedback from its entire fleet of reconnaissance satellites to cut costs by 30% over the last decade. Astrium can now boast 35 low-orbit satellites that have totalled 350 years of service in orbit.

The satellite’s tremendous agility and stability enable it to quickly provide users with extremely high-quality images, even for the most complex acquisition schedules.

Astrium has made use of the latest generation of gyroscopic actuators, fibre optic gyroscopes, on-board electronics and control software to optimise weight and inertia and significantly increase the pointing speed.

The satellite will also carry a Galileo navigator developed by Astrium and the latest generation of Sodern star trackers.

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France commissions new military satellites

Published: Dec. 6, 2010 at 10:20 AM

PARIS, Dec. 6 (UPI) -- France's National Space Study Center has awarded Astrium, an EADS Group company, a $1 billion contract for two military observation satellites.

The satellites will replace the current Helios satellites and will form the Optical Space Component of the future Multinational Space-based system of defense space imagery being developed by Belgium, Germany, Greece, Italy and Spain.

The French Ministry of Defense said Astrium is the prime contractor for the Optical Space Component and Thales Alenia Space will supply the optical instruments and sensors. The two manufacturers will be supported by a network of French high-technology sub-contractors.

The new satellite's optical resolution, the ministry said, will allow the identification of smaller targets, the quantity of images will be higher, especially over crisis zones and the time needed to provide imagery to policy makers and to the forces will be reduced.

The delivery and launch of the first satellite is expected in December 2016.

The contract awarded on behalf of the DGA armaments agency contains a provision allowing development of a third satellite for the program.

© 2010 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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Russia Fails to Put Satellites Into Orbit

(Source: Deutsche Welle German radio; issued Dec. 5, 2010)

Three Russian satellites crashed into the Pacific on Sunday after a failure to launch them into orbit. The satellites were supposed to complete the Russian navigation system Glonass, a rival to the American GPS.

Russia has lost three of its satellites intended to complete a new navigation system to rival the American GPS network.

The satellites are believed to have crashed into the Pacific Ocean after the rocket carrying them failed to reach orbit.

The satellites were carried by a Proton-M rocket which took off from Russia's Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan early on Sunday.

Later, a second-stage booster rocket failed, leading to the upper-stage rocket with the satellites probably falling into the Pacific not far from the Hawaiian islands, Russian space industry official said.

The loss of the three satellites weighing around 1.4 tons is estimated to cost Russia several hundred million euros.

Glonass launch not affected

The Russian Defense Ministry played down the significance of the loss, saying the incident would not affect the rollout of the new Glonass-M positioning system.

"There are currently 26 satellites in the Glonass constellation, including two emergency satellites. This allows a complete coverage of the territory," a ministry statement said.

"The Russian space industry's capacity enables us to react rapidly to what's happened," it said. Officials insist the system would be fully operational next year.

The Glonass system dates back to Soviet times when development started in 1976. The network is intended to be an alternative to the US Global Positioning System (GPS) and was supposed to be in place by the end of January 2011 in order to lessen Moscow's dependence on GPS.

The European space agency (ESA) is developing its own Galileo system to rival both GPS and Glonass.

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