Secure SATCOM capabilities to be expanded for French Armed Forces
NewsFebruary 19, 2021
FRANCE. Thales has been chosen by the French defense procurement agency (DGA) to lead a second part of the ground segment of the Syracuse IV satellite communications (SATCOM) system for the French armed forces.
The Group was selected to supply the satellites in 2015 and to lead the first increment of the ground segment in 2019. This second capacity increment is intended to enhance the interoperable communications capabilities of the French Army, Navy, and Air Force in terms of data rate, availability, threat resistance, and end-to-end connectivity.
This program will aim to enhance the performance of the ground segment across all theaters of operation for the three branches of the French military. The Thales solution will be designed to meet the capacity requirements of land, naval, and air force programs such as Scorpion, FREMM, FDI, Barracuda, aircraft carrier, or Rafale. The Thales technology hopes to guarantee roaming communications in both X- and Ka-band and fully exploit the multi-spot potential of High Throughput Satellite (HTS) technology.
All the ground terminals in the system will be able to make use of the Syracuse IV constellation. Their full interconnection via new docking terminals will aim to allow an increase in data rate by ensuring joint cooperation in theaters of operations and with command centers. They will also be engineered to be compatible with third-party satellite resources, depending on the area of deployment, without compromising communications security.
