Space is no longer just the playground of astronauts and weather satellites: it has become a new strategic battlefield. Between anti-satellite tests, orbit jamming and the abundance of debris, States want to know what is happening up there, in real time.
The new frontier of armies
This is the whole purpose of the ARES (Action and Space Resilience) program, managed by the Directorate General of Armaments (DGA). And its spearhead will be AURORE, a giant radar that Thales will design and install on French soil. Its mission: to tirelessly observe satellites and debris in low orbit.
« With AURORE, the only radar of this type in Europe, Thales contributes to French sovereignty by strengthening its space environment monitoring capabilities “, declared Patrice Caine, CEO of the group. The radar will provide continuous and simultaneous monitoring of multiple space objects, a first on this scale in Europe. It should allow France to better anticipate incidents or suspicious behavior above our heads.
Thales will build AURORE in its Limours factory, in the Paris region, with the help of several French SMEs. The company promises a concentrate of technologies: a software-defined radar, operating in the UHF band, capable of reacting instantly to movements in orbit and producing a high-resolution image of the space situation.
Its modular architecture will also make it possible to ultimately create a complete family of UHF radars, adapted to other military uses — including the detection of ballistic or hypersonic missiles. In other words, AURORE does not just look up to the sky: it paves the way for a whole generation of new generation French radars. The commissioning of AURORE will be very important for European space defense. While the United States, China and Russia are increasing initiatives to monitor — or even control — space, France wants to ensure that it is not watching the match from the sidelines.
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