WASHINGTON — The French government has initiated a new program to develop its own space-based synthetic aperture radar (SAR) capability under a contract with US startup Loft Orbital, along with partners Thales Alenia Space and TEKEVER France, Loft announced today.
The new contract — signed with the French military’s acquisition unit, the Directorate General of Armaments (DGA), and the national space agency, CNES — will see the development and launch of a single demonstration satellite. The pricetag for the contract was not made public, and Loft senior marketing manager Sarah Preston told Breaking Defense that the €50 million ($58.5 million) reported by Payload is “more representative of the total value of the program, but doesn’t reflect how we define the partnership today.”
Either way, the effort “represents a major milestone in the development of a national radar imaging value chain, a critical technology for the armed forces and for France’s strategic autonomy,” according to Loft’s announcement.
France for decades has acquired all weather, day and night SAR satellite imagery from Germany’s now aging SAR-Lupe constellation, in exchange for providing Bonn with visual imagery from the French military’s Helios electro-optical satellites. Thus, the new DESIR (Démonstrateur des Éléments Souverains d’Imagerie Radar/Sovereign Radar Imaging Elements Demonstration) program, to build a French government-owned and -operated SAR satellite network is a shift in strategy for Paris.
French President Emmanuel Macron in November announced a planned increase of €4.2 billion in military space spending between 2026 and 2030, along with a new national space policy focused on achieving “sovereignty and independence” in the domain.
Loft, which is headquartered in San Francisco but has a major operating unit in Toulouse, France, is servicing as the prime contractor and leader of the trilateral consortium. Thales Alenia Space and TEKEVER are “co-designing” the SAR sensor payload.
“The program will draw on Thales Alenia Space’s capabilities in Earth observation instruments and ground segments. In particular, teams responsible for altimetry will contribute to the development of the imaging radar, while the user ground segment will leverage the company’s expertise already proven on export programs,” Thales said in a press release today.
Streamcaster Nexus: Empowering the connected soldier at the tactical edge
On today’s battlefield, mobility isn’t optional - it’s mission-critical.
Loft’s Preston said that the satellite, which is based on the the company’s Longbow satellite platform and is projected to launch in 2029, is not “just a prototype,” but a demonstrator that will provide operational capability to the French government “for over two years.”
She would not, however, discuss whether the contract includes future options for additional satellites.