MUSIS
The MUltinational Space-based Imaging System for Surveillance, Reconnaissance and Observation (MUSIS) is an international program including France, Italy, Belgium, Germany, Greece, and Spain, aimed at allowing the six nations to share imagery from various military satellites through a common, generic user ground segment (UGS) according to agreed rules and quota.[1]
Overview
Similar to many category B projects of European Defence Agency (EDA), it is managed by OCCAR.
MUSIS was intended to provide access to a number of missions intended for the 2015 timeframe:
- the successor of French Hélios 2 called Composante Spatiale Optique (CSO)
- the successor of German SAR-Lupe called SARah
- the successor of Italian COSMO-SkyMed called COSMO Second Generation (CSG)
- the Spanish wide area optical satellite Ingenio (formerly known as Seosat)
The two systems mentioned first are entirely military whilst the two latter systems are dual-use.
History
MUSIS was approved in 2006 and studies were launched in order to achieve Initial Operational Capability (IOC) by 2015. MUSIS was supposed to allow mutual access to the - still national - satellite constellations through the generic UGS. The latter would allow the countries involved to share intelligence imagery more easily than is currently possible.[2]
After many divisions[3] amongst the nations involved and some calls to cancel the programme, MUSIS has undergone a substantial change.[4]
But effectively, during the meeting on May 6, 2010, the programme was essentially terminated.[citation needed]
Now, MUSIS has deteriorated to a financial contribution scheme to the French CSO which is the successor of the French Hélios II programme. MUSIS (a.k.a. CSO) provides a co-funding of CSO and in return offers a percentage no higher than 5% of the optical images that CSO will be able to provide.
On 1 July 2010, Poland and Sweden decided to join the MUSIS programme.[5]
On 17 December 2010, contracts were awarded for the first two MUSIS satellites, which are the Helios 2 successors.[6]
On 17 June 2011, contracts were awarded to Thales España for the optical focal plane arrays for the first two satellites.[7] In October 2011, Sofradir was awarded a contract to provide HgCdTe sensors for the focal planes of the infra-red instruments on those satellites.[8]
References
- ^ http://eda.europa.eu/Capabilitiespriorities/coredrivers/Space/Earthobservation/MUSIS Archived January 23, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Henry S. Kenyon (October 2007). "European Nations Focus Space-Based Observation Capabilities". SIGNAL Magazine. Retrieved December 8, 2009.
- ^ Space News Staff Writer (April 25, 2010). "MUSIS Ground System Deal Teeters on Edge of Collapse". Space News.
- ^ "MUSIS: Can Europe Share Space Surveillance, Seamlessly?". Defenseindustrydaily.com. 2012-09-03. Retrieved 2013-11-13.
- ^ "Poland and Sweden express the intention to join the Multinational Space-Based Imaging System Programme". Eda.europa.eu. 2010-06-28. Retrieved 2013-11-13.
- ^ "Lancement de la réalisation des satellites CSO du programme Musis". Direction générale de l'armement. 2010-06-28. Retrieved 2013-11-13.
- ^ "Thales Alenia Space España Is Awarded Contracts Worth More Than 11 Million Euros For The European Earth Observation MUSIS Program". Spacenewsfeed.co.uk. 2011-06-07. Retrieved 2013-11-13.
- ^ SPIE Europe Ltd. "Sofradir wins military satellite IR detector contract". Optics.org. Retrieved 2013-11-13.