Starting small: French microsats test missile-warning technologies

摘要

Two tabletop-sized satellites now orbiting Earth are the next step in France's decades-long effort to establish a nuclear deterrent and missile-warning capability independent of the U.S., which has invested billions in missile-warning satellites since the early 1970s. The 120-kilogram demonstrator satellites carry infrared-sensitive telescopes made from an experimental, carbon-based material that will test France's ability to detect the hot plumes of missiles rising in their boost phases. These microsats--so called because they are a fraction the size of the world's large satellites--are meant to clear a technical path for construction of a pair of much larger operational missile-warning satellites by 2020. France would position these satellites in geosynchronous orbits to sound the alarm for a ground-based radar the country also plans to build. Together, the satellites and radar would form an integrated ballistic missile early warning system that would tell commanders where a missile would land if it were not shot down by a future European missile-defense system. France also would know whom to retaliate against.