Alliance Ground Surveillance

SES is the only satellite operator involved in a NATO project developing airborne ground surveillance. The Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS) system is designed to meet its intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance requirements for the 21st century. It can also support a variety of new mission requirements for NATO including crisis management, humanitarian relief and broader security concerns when it becomes available in 2012.

SES is providing satellite capacity and engineering services, alongside Northrop Grumman with its Global Hawk high altitude, long endurance (HALE) unmanned aircraft system. This is equipped with Multi-Platform Radar Technology to continuously detect and track moving objects throughout the observed areas, as well as providing radar imagery of areas and stationary objects.

The ground segment will be developed by a consortium of industry partners and would also be available for re-use in the national programmes of the 13 participating nations. The ground station will provide data to multiple users and is seen as an interoperable interface between the AGS Core and a wide range of national and NATO Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) systems.

"NATO AGS is an essential asset to support our alliance forces in Afghanistan and across the full range of NATO operations in the future," said Peter C. W. Flory, NATO's Assistant Secretary General for Defence Investment.