Thales, Airbus to design French SIGINT system
Thales and Airbus Defence and Space have been selected to design and develop the French future military spaced-based signals intelligence (SIGINT) system, as announced by Thales on 12 March.
The French defence procurement agency (DGA) selected the two companies for the contract, which covers the entire space and user ground segment, along with through-life support.
The SIGINT system, named Capacité de Renseignement Electromagnétique d’origine Spatiale (CERES), is scheduled to enter service by 2020.
The CERES system will have three closely-positioned satellites that will detect and locate radars and radio communication. The ground control segment of the system will be provided by the French space agency CNES. A user ground segment is also included.
Thales will be responsible for the mission payload on board the satellites and for the user ground segment that will conduct data processing and satellite programming.
Airbus Defence and Space will be responsible for the space segment, which includes three satellites that will carry the SIGINT payloads. Thales Alenia Space will provide the platforms as part of a subcontract to Airbus.
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