Spirale is a French government programme to develop an early warning system which will use infrared satellite

Satellite

In the context of spaceflight, a satellite is an object which has been placed into orbit by human endeavour. Such objects are sometimes called artificial satellites to distinguish them from natural satellites such as the Moon....

 imagery to detect the flights of ballistic missile

Ballistic missile

A ballistic missile is a missile that follows a sub-orbital ballistic flightpath with the objective of delivering one or more warheads to a predetermined target. The missile is only guided during the relatively brief initial powered phase of flight and its course is subsequently governed by the...

s during their boost phase, just after launch. 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 120 kilograms (264.6 lb) microsatellites and an alert and monitoring ground segment. The satellites have been launched by Ariane 5

Ariane 5

Ariane 5 is, as a part of Ariane rocket family, an expendable launch system used to deliver payloads into geostationary transfer orbit or low Earth orbit . Ariane 5 rockets are manufactured under the authority of the European Space Agency and the Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales...

on 12 February 2009.