Spirale

Spirale is a French government programme to develop an early warning system which will use infrared satellite imagery to detect the flights of ballistic missiles during their boost phase, just after launch.{{cite web |url=http://www.astrium.eads.net/families/security-satellite-defence-systems-military-missile/futuredefnce/spirale |title=Spirale - Keeping an eye on security |publisher=Astrium}} SPIRALE is an acronym which stands for "Système Préparatoire Infra-Rouge pour l’ALErte", literally "infrared preparatory system for alert".

The demonstrator system includes two {{convert|120|kg}} microsatellites and an alert and monitoring ground segment. The satellites have been launched by Ariane 5 on 12 February 2009.