Reznikov on "people’s satellite" for Armed Forces: Army will begin to receive information that could not receive at all before
Information from satellites of the ICEYE company, one of which was purchased for Ukraine by the Serhii Prytula Foundation, will help to inflict more damage on the enemy.
Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov announced this on Facebook, Censor.NET reports.
"The Defense Forces of Ukraine received qualitatively new capabilities thanks to the "people's satellite". Ukrainians once again impressed the world and implemented an unprecedented project. Now the Defense Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense, the Armed Forces of Ukraine and other components of the defense forces will have at their disposal data from the group of satellites of the ICEYE company, which collect information for by Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) technology. This will help to inflict damage on the enemy much more effectively and drive him out of our land faster, while saving the lives of our people," he emphasized.
"A meeting was held with Mr. Serhiy Prytula, during which he proposed to direct the collected funds to other urgent needs of the Ukrainian army. Specialists of the Ministry of Defense, together with the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the General Staff of the Defense Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense, analyzed the situation in detail and determined the best option that would allow our army to climb several steps higher . The fact is that since April, in negotiations with partners, we have especially emphasized the need to receive aid or purchase long-range, high-precision weapons. In June, a kind of tectonic shift occurred in this regard. We began to receive not only MLRS systems of various types, but also high-precision projectiles for barrel artillery. In order to optimally use this new potential and plan operations, the military command needed to significantly increase intelligence capabilities not only at the tactical level, but also at the operational level," the minister added.
"At the moment, we receive information from satellites from partners. But this data is mainly from optical satellites, which have their own technological limitations for working at night when it is cloudy, the battlefield is covered with smoke, it is snowing or there are other obstacles. In addition, this information comes from with a certain delay and not from all directions that are important for our military at one point or another.
Now the situation will be fundamentally different.
• First, it was possible to acquire one satellite that uses SAR technology. This satellite, which sees at night and through clouds, etc., will work in the interests of the defense forces of Ukraine 24/7. "Buy" is not an exaggeration. It will acquire information for the defense needs of Ukraine as long as it physically exists and performs its functions.
• Secondly, access to a whole constellation of satellites was acquired at the same time, our military will be able to use the database of their photos for a year.
• Thirdly, the decoding of images will be organized in such a way that the data will arrive as quickly as possible.
That is, our army will begin to receive information that it could not receive at all before. And will do it quickly, when it is needed, and from where it is needed.
Data from partners will remain an important component of our awareness. This combination will increase the quality of decision-making," Reznikov emphasized.
"One more important point. The General Staff and military intelligence have defined the technical requirements for satellite technologies that we would like to attract for our army. During the analysis of specific offers on the market, it became clear that the capabilities of the ICEYE company are a real "space". However, they had an equally unattainable value. Therefore, at first we did not even hope that we would be able to attract them. In the end, thanks to the Ukrainian entrepreneur Maksym Poliakov, in the process of negotiations, it was possible to obtain such conditions that made the space dream a reality. Our military and intelligence did not hide their joy. After all, the combination of high-quality intelligence from satellites and the capabilities of high-precision weapons really creates new capabilities. Let's say that soon every HIMARS, M270 or MARS II, as well as every gun or self-propelled gun with high-precision projectiles will be able to destroy the enemy more effectively. Everyone knows how skillfully our soldiers work under the leadership of the military command. Imagine what they will do with the Russian invaders when they get additional opportunities. This is really good news, which was contributed by ordinary citizens, Ukrainian business, volunteers, the Ministry of Defense, military intelligence and specialists of the General Staff," the Minister of Defense summarized.
