Helios 2B was launched five years later, on 18 December 2009, carried also by an Ariane 5. The two satellites are identical.[4] They carry aThales-built high-resolution visible and thermal infrared instrument with 35 cm resolution,[5] and anAirbus-built medium-resolution instrument.[6] The Helios 2 satellite bus is nearly identical to the platform built by EADS Astrium for theSpot 5 civil-commercial optical observation satellite.[7]
The Helios 2 will be replaced by theComposante Spatiale Optique (CSO), a new French program of three military observation satellites. The first satellite (CSO-1) was launched on 15 December 2018, the second (CSO-2) on 29 December 2020, with the final launch (CSO-3) being scheduled for 2024.[8][9][10]
