Thales To Provide S-Band Transponders Argentina Saocom and Aquarius Missions

TECH SPACE

Saocom class satellite.

by Staff Writers
Paris, France (SPX) Jun 13, 2007
Thales Alenia Space, through its subsidiary Thales Alenia Space Espana, has been awarded two contracts for the development and supply of S-band TTC transponders dedicated to Saocom and Aquarius/SAC-D Earth observation satellites. It is the first time that Thales Alenia Space will provide equipments for both Argentina's INVAP company and CONAE space agency. The Saocom satellite series are Argentina's first remote sensing mission carrying a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) as main payload.

The mission is headed by CONAE, with INVAP as prime contractor.

Saocom satellites are planed to be part of the joint Italian-Argentina SIASGE constellation (Sistema Italo-Argentino de Satelites para Gestion de Emergencias), which will also comprise the Italian COSMO-SkyMed satellites, for which Thales Alenia Space is prime contractor.

The Aquarius satellite is designed to measure global sea surface salinity and to provide an unprecedented new view of the ocean's role in climate.

The Aquarius/SAC-D mission is a joint satellite program between NASA and CONAE which is scheduled to be launched in 2009 at the same period as the ESA's Soil Moisture Ocean Salinity (SMOS) mission, based on the Proteus platform developed jointly by Thales Alenia Space and CNES, the French space agency.

Both missions will provide an unprecedented opportunity to simultaneously address the atmosphere-ocean-land components of the global water cycle.

CONAE (Comision Nacional de Actividades Espaciales) is the Argentinean Space Agency for all large Argentina Space projects. INVAP, the prime contractor, is the sole company in Argentina qualified under NASA standards for the undertaking of such Space projects.

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