January 15, 2020 | International, Aerospace
By: Christina Mackenzie
PARIS — France has awarded a contract for Archange, its strategic airborne intelligence program aimed at strengthening the country's signals intelligence capabilities, to Thales and Dassault Aviation.
The procurement agency DGA awarded the contract on Dec. 30, but it wasn't announced until Tuesday. The program was launched Nov. 18 by Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly.
The companies would not specify how much the contract was worth.
Thales is expected to install a universal electronic warfare capability on three Dassault-manufactured Falcon 8X aircraft, although the announced deal is only for two aircraft. Another contract is expected to cover a third aircraft at a later date. The first two aircraft should, by 2025, replace the two Transall C-160 Gabriel aircraft that provide the French Air Force which signals intelligence.
The electronic warfare system, known by its French acronym CUGE (capacité universelle de guerre électronique), will make use of sigint technologies developed by Thales over the past decade to enable the system to simultaneously detect and analyze radio and radar signals. Thales said in a statement that this is possible thanks to multipolarization antennas and the use of artificial intelligence for automated data processing.
The tri-jet Falcon 8X is Dassault's flagship business jet. It has a range of 7,500 miles, but a spokesman for Dassault told Defense News that this did not necessarily mean the sigint version, called Archange (avion de renseignement à charge utile de nouvel génération), would have the same range.
The contract also includes the supply of a ground-based training platform, which will be based at Evreux, south of Paris.
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This additional order exercises an option on an existing contract which was initially awarded in 2017 and includes multiple line item options for additional Sea Giraffe MMR systems. The initial contract covers manufacturing, inspection, testing and delivery of the radars, which will be deployed on the Coast Guard's Heritage class offshore patrol cutter. Deliveries will take place between 2020 and 2021. Saab has continuously developed the standard Giraffe AMB sensor to meet multiple missions in the U.S. sea services from open-ocean blue-water applications into the littorals. “The key to our success in the US is the combination of our efficient and flexible Sea Giraffe radar coupled with our technical expertise and understanding of the US customer's needs and expectations”, says Anders Carp, Senior Vice President and Head of Saab business area Surveillance. In addition to the offshore patrol cutter, Saab's Sea Giraffe MMR radar is also being delivered for the Hershel Wilson Expeditionary Sea Base (ESB-4) class ship, operated by the U.S. Military Sealift Command. Saab's Sea Giraffe variant referred to as AN/SPS-77 is currently being deployed on the U.S Navy's Independence-class Littoral Combat Ships. Saab is also developing an AN/SPN-50 variant to meet the air traffic control needs of the U.S. Naval Air Systems Command for deployment on the Nimitz class aircraft carrier (CVN) and America- (LHA) and Wasp- (LHD) class amphibious assault ships. Saab will carry out the work in Syracuse, NY in the U.S. and Gothenburg, Sweden. https://saabgroup.com/media/news-press/news/2019-06/saab-receives-order-from-the-u.s.-for-sea-giraffe-mmr/