Helios-II A: EU Ariane rocket successfully placed into
orbit the first in a new generation of French military
satellites
Four so-called Essaim (Swarm) microsatellites, a
microsatellite called Parasol and Nanosat, a tiny
Spanish civilian research satellite were also
successfully separated from the rocket, which had
earlier taken off from the European Space Agency's
launchpad in French Guiana.
French defense minister Michele Alliot-Marie hailed the
successful launch, sending her congratulations to the
scientists from Paris, where she watched it live on
televison.
Helios II A is designed to have enhanced imaging in the
optical and infrared range and is designed to improve
military intelligence which will be used notably by
France, Belgium and Spain. It has a five year space
life.
The microsatellites are designed by French military
scientists as a testbed for new technologies in
electromagnetic surveillance.
Parasol is a microsatellite designed by French civilian
scientists to study cloud formations and aerosols in the
upper atmosphere, while Nanosat is also designed to
monitor atmospheric changes.
In French language:
ReplyDeleteLe programme Hélios-II A, qui sera complété par le
lancement du satellite Hélios-II B en décembre 2008,
offrira aux armées une triple capacité :
- des activités de renseignement, en permettant de
constituer des dossiers de zones géographiques et de
sites précis, tout en assurant un suivi de la
prolifération, notamment nucléaire ;
- la préparation de missions (dossiers d'objectifs,
évaluation a priori des dommages collatéraux, évaluation
des dommages après des frappes aériennes) ;
- la réalisation de cartes pour des zones où elles sont
insuffisantes (Afghanistan, Irak), et la fourniture de
modèles numériques de terrain pour le guidage de
missiles de croisière.
"Missile shield failure"
ReplyDeleteUSA Defense Department: the flight test failed on Wednesday
as the interceptor missile did not launch from the
Marshall Islands due to an "unknown anomaly," though the
target missile carrying a mock warhead was successfully
fired from Kodiak, Alaska. The failure could deal a
heavy blow to the Bush administration, which plans to
activate a rudimentary ground-based missile defense
shield by the end of this year. The Japanese government
has said the failure has had no impact on the planned
Japan-U.S. joint missile shield development. Tokyo said
the two countries are working on a different type of
system that is much smaller in scale. Japan and the
United States agreed in 1998 to engage in joint missile
shield research after North Korea fired a ballistic
missile over Japan earlier that year. The two countries
are poised to move on to the development and production
stages as last week Japan announced a relaxation of its
arms exports control to enable sales of missile defense
components to the United States."
Kyodo news
A European rocket roared into space from a pad
ReplyDeletein South America on Saturday, placing into orbit a
surveillance satellite billed as giving France's
military new abilities to spy worldwide.
The unmanned craft lifted off smoothly from a launch
center in Kourou, French Guiana, at 1:36 p.m. - the
third and last launch of an Ariane-5 rocket this year,
Arianespace said.
The satellite and six smaller scientific ones were
placed into orbit about an hour after liftoff. It was
the first time in 11 years that an Ariane rocket carried
as many as seven satellites on a single launch.
The Helios 2A military satellite, the rocket's main
cargo, is to rotate in sun-synchronous orbit around 435
miles above the Earth, Arianespace said.
"The success of the Helios 2A launch is a great step
forward for our space policy," Defense Minister Michele
Alliot-Marie said at Ecole Militaire. "Mastering space
is an imperative for tomorrow," she said, calling for
greater space cooperation in Europe.
The French military will "benefit from additional
capabilities, more precise images and faster reaction
speed," she said at a screening room at the Paris
academy.
Among expected functions, the satellite is to monitor
possible weapons proliferation, prepare and evaluate
military operations and digitally map terrain for cruise
missile guidance, the French Defense Ministry said in a
statement Friday.
Helios 2A, weighing 4.6 tons, is said to be able to spot
objects as small as a textbook anywhere on Earth.
Equipped with infrared sensors, it is expected to allow
France's military to gather information at night from
space for the first time.
Among its predecessors, Helios 1B, which was launched in
1999, suffered a power problem and the military let it
disintegrate in the upper layers of the atmosphere two
months ago. The first satellite in the series, Helios
1A, went up in 1995 and is still operating.
Also in the payload Saturday was the Parasol satellite,
which is to help study the effect of cloud cover and
aerosols on global warming and the greenhouse effect,
believed to occur when carbon dioxide emissions trap the
sun's heat in the atmosphere.
Parasol is part of a French-American space observation
mission involving six satellites that can study the
world's atmosphere and help give a complete idea of how
human activity affects the environment.
The launch marks the 165th Ariane mission since the
European launcher first began operating in 1979.
Arianespace is the commercial arm of the 13-country
European Space Agency.