UK MoD abandons joint satellite project

The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) is to go it alone on a £1bn satellite project it had planned to co-develop with France and Germany. The joint project, announced in December 1997, was needed to replace the outdated Skynet 4 fleet of military satellites.

The next generation, Skynet 5, will now be developed separately by the UK. Defence minister, Lord Gilbert, said there was concern that the UK was "unable to rely with assurance on collaborative processes being able to meet its needs before existing satellites go out of date".

France, Germany and the UK initially set out to develop the satellite communications together to introduce more interoperability between the separate systems. A spokesman for the MoD denied that this interoperability will now be sacrificed. "The satellites are still going to be based on the same NATO standards," he said.