France launched early Saturday the military satellite Syracuse 3B from Kourous in French Guiana thereby creating the conditions for faster and more efficient military exercises abroad, reported dpa. The satellite is to be made available to Germany's military and to the NATO alliance. The Ariane 5 ECA delivered Japan's JCSAT-10 telecommunications satellite to an altitude of 36,000 kilometres and the European Syracuse 3B secure military relay platform into a geostationary orbit. President Jacques Chirac said Syracuse "strengthens the autonomy of the military assessment, decision and capacity of France and the European Union to act." In terms of construction, Syracuse 3B is identical to the Syracuse 3A launched in October 2005. Like 3A, the latest model is based on on Alcatel Alenia Space's commercial Spacebus platform, reinforced to resist nuclear attack. The Syracuse 3C is to follow in 2010. The program worth 2.3 billion euros (2.9 billion dollars) supports new services, including telephony services, access to military intranets and video conferencingg and network interconnections and interoperability between the allied forces. The satellite, which weighs 3.75 tonnes, has six SHF (super high frequency) and six EHF (extremely high frequency) bands are to be connected to 600, mostly mobile ground stations. They cover an area extending from the eastern United States to eastern China and would multiply the existing transfer capacity by ten. Syracuse 3 was developed by Alcatel Alenia Space and Thales (ground stations). The TV satellite JCSAT-10 built by Lockheed Martin is set to transmit high resolution television for Japan and the Asian-Pacific region to Hawaii over 15 years. It was the third Ariane launch in 2006 and the sixth of an Ariane 5 ECA.
