Airbus wins its first
Syracuse IV ground segment programme contract
4 March 2020
Within the Syracuse IV
programme, Airbus has been awarded a 10-year
framework agreement called Copernicus for the
construction and upgrading of part of the ground
segment for the telecommunications satellites
used by the French Armed Forces. As part of
Copernicus, the French Directorate General of
Armaments (DGA) has placed an initial order
worth more than € 100 million.
Dominique Maudet, Head of
French Defence Sales at Airbus Defence and Space
said: “We are building the future broadband and
multi-satellite ground segment for France’s
Armed Forces. It will be fully integrated,
intelligent and dynamic, giving operators access
to a decision-making tool unique to satellite
communications management.”
This first order
specifically covers the development of the
future satellite communications management
system for the French Ministry of Defence. This
unique portal called Pegasus, accessible to all
units, will enable the French Armed Forces to
optimise use of the available capacities on
military and commercial satellites. It will make
it possible to coordinate requests entered by
central military staff or any unit deployed on
the ground, at sea or in the air. Allocation of
satellite capacities will be optimised in terms
of operational criteria completed by the units,
such as the type of terminals used, ground
cover, level of cyber security, jamming
resistance, as well as the need for
availability.
The Copernicus project also
aims to increase the operability of Comcept, the
multi-satellite communications network designed
by Airbus and commissioned by the French armed
forces in 2017. Comcept uses the broadband
Ka-band transmission capacities of the
Franco-Italian military satellite ATHENA-FINDUS,
in addition to the Ku- and C-band capacities of
commercial satellites. Thanks to these
developments, Comcept will also be able to use
the high-speed Ka-band of future satellites
SYRACUSE 4A and 4B.
Different elements of the
SYRACUSE IV programme’s future ground segment
and the Pegasus portal will enable the French
armed forces to use the entire spectrum of
satellite capacities efficiently and
dynamically, from the most secure and resilient
to the high-speed and wide coverage capacities,
in all areas of operations.