Another case of a headline abuse. The “Accent Graves” thing in the printed version is a bad French pun.

FWIW, Sarkosy will be big on the ability to do this independently, the Gaullists, and his party is one of their descendants have always been bigger on this than the socialists.

France Pushes Operational Space Surveillance, Elint Capabilities

Aviation Week & Space Technology
06/18/2007, page 70

Michael A. Taverna
Broye-les-Pesmes and Rennes, France

France pushes Europe to develop operational space surveillance, elint capabilities

Printed headline: Accent Graves

France is inviting its European neighbors to collaborate on a ground-based space surveillance system as part of a proposed military space buildup that could include operational signals intelligence and data relay networks.

Since December 2005, the French air force’s air defense/air operations command has been operating a space surveillance facility that was initially intended as a technology demonstrator. Unlike existing systems in the U.S. and Russia, which rely on an array of sensors, the French installation, called Graves, uses a single bistatic radar and a powerful 60-Gflop/sec. processing system to detect the angular and radial velocity measurements of orbiting spacecraft and–using patented algorithms–determine their orbital parameters. A four-transmitter array is located at Broye-les-Pesmes, east of Dijon; receivers are on the Plateau d’Albion, 400 km. (250 mi.) south.

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