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PP RUEHAG RUEHAST RUEHDF RUEHDH RUEHHM RUEHLN RUEHLZ RUEHMA RUEHPB
RUEHPOD RUEHSL RUEHTM RUEHTRO
DE RUEHRL #0765/01 1761357
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 251357Z JUN 09
FM AMEMBASSY BERLIN
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 4436
INFO RUEHZN/ENVIRONMENT SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY COLLECTIVE
RUCNFRG/FRG COLLECTIVE
RUEHBJ/AMEMBASSY BEIJING 1029
RUEHMO/AMEMBASSY MOSCOW 2058
RUEHRO/AMEMBASSY ROME 2058
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHINGTON DC
RUEHRL/USDAO BERLIN GE
RUEHBS/USEU BRUSSELS
RUCUSTR/USSTRATCOM OFFUTT AFB NE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 BERLIN 000765 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
SIPDIS 
STATE FOR EUR/CE PETER SCHROEDER 
STATE FOR ISN/MDSP DICK BUENNEKE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ETTC PGOV PINR MCAP PREL TSPA IT RS CH GM
SUBJECT: ASTRIUM GERMANY PLANS TO CORNER WORLD SPACE RADAR 
MARKET; PITCHES TO USG 
 
REF: A. BERLIN 601 
     ¶B. BERLIN 561 
     ¶C. BERLIN 181 
     ¶D. 08 BERLIN 1575 
     ¶E. 08 BERLIN 1537 
 
¶1.  (SBU) SUMMARY: EADS Astrium Friedrichshafen and their 
daughter company, Infoterra GmbH, are actively marketing 
their space-based Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery, 
imagery derived products, and even complete spacecraft to the 
US market with the strategic goal of securing funding to 
develop their next generation programs.  Astrium, in 
collaboration with Infoterra, are confident their commercial 
space-based radar market niche will offer superior value to 
potential US customers and are taking calculated steps to 
capture US market share.  Astrium's ultimate goal is to 
corner the world commercial space-based radar market.  END 
SUMMARY 
 
 
BACKGROUND 
---------- 
 
¶2.  (SBU) On May 29, Mr. Thomas Walati from Astrium 
Friedrichshafen, an exclusively German portion of the 
pan-European company EADS, along with Mr. Joerg Herrmann, CEO 
of Infoterra GmbH, visited the US Embassy in Berlin to meet 
with Embassy staff and visitors from the US based RAND 
Corporation.  The purpose of the meeting was to brief RAND on 
the German satellite industry in support of a study that RAND 
is compiling for USAF customers (USAF/A3/5 and USAF/A30-S), 
entitled "Leveraging US Allied Space Capabilities."  While 
RAND was in a listening mode for this meeting, Walati and 
Herrmann utilized this opportunity to plug their product 
offerings with the knowledge that the USAF would be an 
indirect audience. 
 
 
ASTRIUM BUILDS THE SATELLITES; INFOTERRA SELLS THE DATA 
--------------------------------------------- ---------- 
 
¶3.  (SBU) Infoterra GmbH was created in 2001 as subsidiary of 
Astrium Friedrichshafen as part of Astrium Services, and is 
the exclusive distributor of data product from Astrium's 
TerraSAR-X program.  Astrium developed TerraSAR-X in a Public 
Private Partnership (PPP) with the German Space Agency (DLR), 
where both parties have 50/50 rights to the data and share 
development costs/risks.  Herrmann said due to the commercial 
success of this program, Astrium/Infoterra are in a position 
to forego the PPP arrangement for future systems.  Astrium 
plans to launch a sister satellite to TerraSAR-X, called 
TanDEM-X, in October 2009 and is in advanced 
design/development stages of a series of next generation 
space-based SAR systems.  As these systems come online, 
Infoterra will handle all data marketing/distribution. 
 
 
ASTRIUM'S SPACE-BASED RADAR DEVELOPMENT PLAN 
-------------------------------------------- 
 
¶4.  (SBU) Astrium is pursuing three primary market segments 
for their future space-based remote sensing projects: 1) 
defense, 2) commercial data exports, and 3) the export of 
complete spacecraft.  To make this vision a reality, Astrium 
is developing the following next-generation SAR systems: 
SCOUT-SAR, SCOUT-HRWS, Full Digital Beam Forming SCOUT, and 
TerraSAR-NG.  Astrium says the next generation of SAR 
satellites will also address customer demands for future 
wideband SAR -- something that the current TerraSAR-X 
technology lacks.  (COMMENT: Astrium's TerraSAR-X data has 
been evaluated by the NGA and is certified to Level II 
Digital Terrain Elevation Data (DTED) standard.  END COMMENT) 
 Herrmann said beginning with the TanDEM-X mission, Astrium's 
expectation is to meet DTED Level III. 
 
¶5.  (SBU) According to documentation provided by Walati, the 
base SCOUT system uses a wide-band, active phased array SAR. 
The core idea is to improve resolution and agility, while 
lowering the cost.  The primary driving force pushing SCOUT 
 
BERLIN 00000765  002 OF 003 
 
 
development is increased competition in the commercial SAR 
arena, particularly from the Italian COSMOS SkyMED SAR 
system.  SCOUT's technology improvements leverage the 
TerraSAR-X design, simplify the design, use more robust 
integration, and use standardized components. 
 
¶6.  (SBU) Astrium said the SCOUT-SAR system technology will 
be ready by 2010 and will feature significant improvements in 
resolution and agility over TerraSAR-X.  To improve agility 
and zoom capabilities, SCOUT-SAR will integrate wide-band 
electronic beam steering.  The SCOUT-SAR system resolution is 
expected to be as follows: 
 
MODE                   Resolution   Area 
----                   ----------   ---- 
Spotlight              0.5 meter    10 km area 
Strip Map              1-2 meter    25 km swath width 
Digital Beam Forming   5 meter      100 km swath width 
 
 
¶7.  (SBU) The SCOUT-High Resolution Wide Swath (HRWS) system 
will build on SCOUT-SAR capabilities by integrating the 
Astrium-patented Digital Beam Forming (DBF) capabilities that 
Astrium anticipates will be ready by 2012.  Astrium said DBF 
will enable a new High Resolution Overview Mode (HROM). 
Astrium expects the following resolutions in HROM mode: 
 
Resolution      Area 
----------      ---- 
1 meter         100 km swath width 
4 meter         250 km swath width 
 
 
¶8.  (SBU) TerraSAR-New Generation (NG) will be based on the 
SCOUT model, but with superior features.  TerraSAR-NG will 
have an enhanced HRWS capability, which, in combination with 
DBF technology, Astrium anticipates will enable resolutions 
in the 50 cm range.  Herrmann said Astrium also plans on 
incorporating thermal infrared sensors in the TerraSAR-NG 
payload, with expected resolution in the range of 20-50 
meters.  Herrmann said Astrium expects that the ability to 
provide thermal signatures with SAR data will be a valuable 
commodity to future customers.  The anticipated release date 
of this technology is 2012. 
 
¶9.  (SBU) Full Digital Beam Forming SCOUT will build on 
SCOUT-HRWS, focusing on further resolution, image size, and 
sensitivity improvements.  In addition, this system will 
incorporate moving target detection and multi-target 
capabilities.  Astrium expects this technology to be ready in 
¶2020. 
 
 
THE SALES PITCH 
--------------- 
 
¶10.  (SBU) For Walati and Herrmann, this meeting represented 
an opportunity to market their products, something that they 
will take every opportunity to do.  Herrmann said Infoterra 
could offer US customers access to their data based on a 
subscription to a fixed percentage of spacecraft data storage 
capacity.  For the USG, Herrmann said this percentage could 
be up to 30 per cent.  (COMMENT:  Herrmann did not mention 
anything about how tasking priority among customers would be 
handled.  END COMMENT) 
 
¶11.  (SBU) Walati's presentation offered complete TerraSAR-X 
spacecraft capability, including ground segment, to US 
customers.  He said Astrium's Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM) 
price for a single TerraSAR-X spacecraft is 100 million euro. 
 The ground segment, he said, would cost an additional 50 
million euro.  Anticipating potential political concerns, 
Walati offered that Astrium has flexibility in how/where the 
satellite could be built.  For example, he said the bus could 
be built by a US company and the satellite(s) could be 
integrated in the US.  Walati also floated the idea of a 
potential joint US/German TerraSAR-equivalent constellation 
as a way to share costs and at the same time obtain higher 
revisit rates. 
 
BERLIN 00000765  003 OF 003 
 
 
 
 
RUSSIA AND CHINA INTERESTED IN TERRASAR-X 
----------------------------------------- 
 
¶12.  (SBU) Walati said the Russians and Chinese have 
expressed interest in procuring TerraSAR-X systems, but 
Astrium is apprehensive about selling to the Russians and any 
sale to the Chinese is "not likely to happen."  He suggested 
that a sale to Russia is definitely a possibility, but that 
the systems would be of a lower resolution -- on the order of 
three meters.  He said intellectual property rights concerns 
are primary reasons for their lack of interest in a sale to 
the Chinese. 
 
 
ITALY VIEWED AS THE MAIN COMPETITION 
------------------------------------ 
 
¶13.  (SBU) Walati said Astrium views the Italian 
Telespazio-built COSMOS-SkyMed SAR system as their primary 
competition and that it could stymie Astrium's bid on the 
next SAR-Lupe contract.  (COMMENT:  SAR-Lupe is a 5-satellite 
SAR constellation developed by the German firm OHB Systems 
for the German military.  This system is scheduled for re-bid 
in 2013.  END COMMENT)  Walati fears that the planned 
European Multinational Space-Based Imaging System (MUSIS), a 
consortium consisting of Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, 
Spain, and Greece under coordination of the European Defense 
Agency (EDA), will incorporate COSMOS-SkyMed for political 
reasons.  Walati is concerned that MUSIS could potentially 
fill Germany's military need for space-based SAR, obviating 
the need for a follow-on SAR-Lupe system.  (COMMENT: We do 
not expect that Germany would opt for an inferior foreign 
system over an indigenous German SAR system.  We consider it 
unlikely that MUSIS would have any serious effect on the next 
SAR-Lupe contract.  END COMMENT) 
 
 
COMMENT 
------- 
 
¶14.  (SBU) Astrium is aggressively marketing their products, 
but are likely limiting their intended customer target to the 
EU and the US market for now.  The motivation for inking 
customers in the near term is to ensure that funding is 
secured for their down stream projects, as they want to get 
away from the PPP paradigms.  Astrium presented a chart 
depicting 25 countries that have they assess have plans to 
develop/acquire a space-based SAR capability.  Astrium 
clearly sees the business opportunities in the 5-10 year 
horizon and want to ensure that they are the undisputed 
commercial market leader in space-based SAR. 
 
¶15.  (SBU) For further technical information regarding the 
above-mentioned Astrium SAR systems, please contact Shane M. 
Petersen, Email: PetersenSM@state.gov; SIPRNET: 
PetersenSM@state.sgov.gov. 
Koenig