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.
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
Sarah (born Sarai) is a biblical matriarch and prophetess, a major figure in Abrahamic religions. While different Abrahamic faiths portray her differently, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all depict her character similarly, as that of a piou ...
* the successor of Italian
COSMO-SkyMed
COSMO-SkyMed (COnstellation of small Satellites for the Mediterranean basin Observation) is an Earth-observation satellite space-based radar system funded by the Italian Ministry of Research and Ministry of Defence and conducted by the It ...
called
COSMO Second Generation
Cosmo may refer to:
Business and media
* ''Cosmopolitan'' (magazine), a magazine for women, sometimes referred to as "Cosmo"
* ''Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure'', a 1992 video game
* Cosmo On-Line, a Brazilian generic Internet portal
* Cosmo Radio, ...
(CSG)
* the Spanish wide area optical satellite
SEOSat-Ingenio
SEOSat-Ingenio (short for Spanish Earth Observation Satellite-Ingenio), was a Spanish project to produce a satellite capable of providing wide-field imagery (230 frames a day, 60 km × 60 km) ensuring a repeat cycle of 38 days at 2.5 ...
(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. After many divisions amongst the nations involved and some calls to cancel the programme, MUSIS has undergone a substantial change.
But effectively, during the meeting on 6 May 2010, the programme was essentially terminated. Now, MUSIS has deteriorated to a financial contribution scheme to the French
Composante Spatiale Optique (CSO) which is the successor of the French
Helios 2 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
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...
decided to join the MUSIS programme. On 17 December 2010, contracts were awarded for the first two MUSIS satellites, which are the
Helios 2 successors.
On 17 June 2011, contracts were awarded to
Thales España for the optical focal plane arrays for the first two satellites. In October 2011,
Sofradir
Sofradir is a B2B company with headquarters in Châtenay-Malabry, France that designs and manufactures infrared (IR) detectors for military, space and commercial applications. The company’s shareholders are Thales, Sagem and Areva. Sofradir des ...
was awarded a contract to provide
HgCdTe sensors for the focal planes of the infra-red instruments on those satellites.
References
External links
European Defense Agency Press Release
{{DEFAULTSORT:Musis
European space programmes
Cancelled projects
