Poland buys two reconnaissance satellites from France
Poland continues to arm itself, this time the country decided to strengthen its intelligence capabilities and concluded a contract with France for the construction of two intelligence satellites equipped with cameras with a resolution of 30 cm. This is reported by Reuters.
The amount of the contract is €575 million, the contractor is the French company Airbus Defense & Space. The deadline is 2027. The satellite control station will be located in Poland. The agreement was signed by the Minister of Defense of Poland Mariusz Błaszczak and the Minister of Defense of France Sébastien Lecornu.
“Today we had the opportunity to approve an agreement on equipping the Polish Army with reconnaissance satellites. This is a good opportunity to strengthen our capacity to detect threats at an early stage,” said Mariusz Błaszczak.
According to N2YO Poland currently has in orbit 10 satellites, most of which are commercial CubeSats of the STORK constellation from Polish company SatRevolutions with 5m resolution cameras launched in mid-2021 and early 2022. Future satellites from Airbus Defense & Space have much better equipment.
Poland’s first own satellite, the Lem nanosatellite (BRITE-PL), was launched into orbit by the Ukrainian Dnipro rocket in November 2013.