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Emilio Desalvo's avatar

At the moment we (Italy) have an overabundance of COSMO-SkyMed SAR satellites as the four from the original constellation are still in orbit and working, while of the four COSMO-SkyMed Second Generation satellites three are already been launched (the first one on a Soyuz from Kourou!), with two already operational.

So probably part of those two-thirds come from data exchange between Italy and France.

vladimir vladimirovich, PUPPA!

Emilio Desalvo's avatar

BTW, I discovered that the COSMO-SkyMed constellation is integrated with the Argentinian SAOCOM constellation, to increase the passages on the covered areas.

Jack Carter's avatar

And now it looks like latest sat tech can tell the difference between a banana and a mobile phone. Ouch!

Pete Gorton's avatar

It's a shame that ICE weren't using it to determine the difference between Alex holding a gun, and his phone...

Dave Castillohombre's avatar

Thank you France 🇫🇷

UKRAINE 💪❤️🇺🇦❤️💪WILL PERVAIL because some good people doing something

I’M NOT PROUD OF BEING AN AMERICAN RIGHT NOW

CA USA

William Hancock's avatar

When the US president and the DNI both work for Putin, someone needs to pick up the slack.

Neural Foundry's avatar

This breakdown of France's satellite architechture is exacty what I needed. The point about revisit rate as a weapon really resonates - in my work with logistics systems, the difference between delayed data and real-time awareness completely changes decision-making speed. The ecosystem model you describe is brilliant becuase it makes Russia fight an intelligence hydra rather than a single target. Thanks for making complex sat tech so digestible.

Sara Frischer's avatar

Thank you Wes, Musk and his Starlink system cannot be trusted. Thank you for sharing this ingotmation

MediocreLocal's avatar

Starlink has done a lot for Ukraine. Why are you so ungrateful just because he wouldn’t let them use it to guide their drones over Russian territory?

billy mccarthy's avatar

the difference a few countrys satellites can make is tremendous

Nick Hawtin's avatar

Thank you for breaking this down. 🙏🤘

🇩🇰❤️🇺🇦

Craig Ewing's avatar

Somewhere out there in really high earth orbit (RHEO) Charles de Gaulle is looking down and smiling.

Pete Gorton's avatar

Excellent - and encouraging! - overview. Thanks Wes -we appreciate all your work (and knowledge!)