CLASSIFIED
FALCON EYE 2
UAE Military Reconnaissance Satellite · United Arab Emirates (Armed Forces) / Airbus-Thales
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Falcon Eye 2 replaced a satellite that never made it to space at all — its predecessor, Falcon Eye 1, was destroyed in a 2018 launch failure that cost France's Arianespace and the UAE's military nearly half a billion dollars in hardware alone. Falcon Eye 2 finally delivered the sub-70-cm optical reconnaissance capability the UAE had been waiting years for, built by French contractors specifically so the UAE could watch its own region without depending on anyone else's satellite imagery.
Its orbit
- Orbit
- Low Earth Orbitcan appear as a fast-moving star at dawn or dusk
- Altitude
- 383–385 mi (617–619 km)
- Inclination
- 97.9°
- One orbit
- 96.9 minutes14.9 orbits a day
- NORAD ID
- 47226
- Int’l designator
- 2020-090A
- Launched
- 2020
Orbital elements from CelesTrak, as of 22 Sep 2026.
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