The European Ariane 6 rocket successfully launched the CSO-3 reconnaissance satellite, a project jointly funded by France, Germany, and Belgium, French Prime Minister François Bayrou announced.

The rocket lifted off on Thursday from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana.

CSO-3 is the third satellite in the CSO series. The first two were launched in 2018 and 2020 using Russian Soyuz rockets.

With CSO-3 in operation, the French military will be able to monitor the same area twice a day instead of once. France has invested more than €900 million in developing and launching the three satellites.

The CSO satellites, developed by Thales, are part of France’s Optical Space Component (Composante Spatiale Optique) spy satellite constellation.

According to RFI, the launch took place at 1:24 p.m. local time after three weather-related delays. About an hour later, the CSO-3 satellite reached low Earth orbit at an altitude of 800 kilometers.

The launch of Ariane 6 with the CSO-3 satellite is seen as a significant step toward European space autonomy amid strained relations with the new U.S. administration.

European Space Agency (ESA) Director of Space Transportation Tony Tolker-Nielsen emphasized the strategic importance of the mission: “Today, we have demonstrated that Ariane 6 was ready for serial use, from launching lightweight scientific instruments to carrying strategically critical payloads.”

It is expected that the images collected by CSO-3 would be accessible not only to the French military but also to the German and Belgian armed forces, given their financial contributions to the project.

In addition, since France has previously offered intelligence support to Ukraine, CSO-3 could potentially assist Ukrainian forces with satellite imagery, particularly as U.S. intelligence sharing with Kyiv faces blocking.

Ariane 6 is Arianespace’s next-generation launch vehicle. The first test flight took place in July 2024, with five more launches planned for 2025.