Remote sensing must become the 鈥榥ew frontier鈥� of defence, says the French
defence minister Pierre Joxe. During the Gulf War, France was 鈥榩ractically
blind without Allied intelligence鈥�, he said. 鈥楾he same reasons which led
us to develop our own nuclear deterrent must lead us to develop our own
space observation capacity.鈥�
France鈥檚 commercial satellite Spot provided data useful for cartography
during the Gulf War but its resolution of 10 metres was not sharp enough
to pick up essential military details. The first French military satellite,
Helios, will go into orbit in 1994 and provide images with a resolution
of 1-metre. A second Helios, partly funded by Italy and Spain, is planned
for 1995. There are calls in France for it to be dedicated to remote sensing.
