Prior to leaving on my Brookfield Marsh-Butcher's Falls, October 5, excursion Laura spotted an interesting ship entering the harbour. After dropping Laura off at her friend's place I managed to catch up to the ship as it was entering Halifax harbour.

The vessel is French navy, a missile range instrumentation ship.

Monge A601

Here are more details on the vessel.

Monge (A601)

For other ships of the same name, see Monge (surname).

Career
Name:	Monge
Namesake:	Gaspard Monge
Builder:	Chantiers de l'Atlantique, Saint-Nazaire
Laid down:	26 March 1990
Launched:	6 October 1990
In service:	4 November 1992
Status:	Active
General characteristics
Displacement:	21,000 tonnes
Length:	225.6 metres
Beam:	24.84 metres
Draught:	7.60 metres
Propulsion:	2 SEMT Pielstick 8PC 2.5 L400 diesels One shaft One 1000 kW bow propeller
Speed:	16 knots (30 km/h; 18 mph)
Range:	15,000 nautical miles (28,000 km; 17,000 mi) at 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph)
Endurance:	60 days
Complement:	21 officers 15 civilian technicians of the General Directorate for Armament 120 petty officiers 45 quarter-masters and seamen
Sensors and processing systems:	4 trajectography radars in C band (2 Armor, 1 Gascogne and 1 Normandie). Telemeasurement station with 6 air antennas, including 2 Antarès 7 various telemetry and optronic tracking antennas One LIDAR One Tavitac 2000 combat direction system 2 DRBN-34 (Racal Decca) navigation and landing radars 1 DRBV 15C radar combined de veille combiné  ; Navstar SENIN Satellite communication systems (Syracuse II, Inmarsat).
Armament:	2 x 20 mm modèle F2 gun 2 x 12.7 mm machine guns
Aircraft carried:	650 m² plateforme and 180 m² hangar, can operate heavy helicopters. One Aérospatiale Alouette III as of 2006.

The Monge (A601), named after the 18th century mathematician Gaspard Monge, is a Missile Range Instrumentation Ship of the French Navy dedicated to tracking and measuring rocket trajectories. She was built for the trials of the Submarine-launched ballistic missiles of the Navy, and is also used to monitor the launch of Ariane rockets.

Technology

The systems in the Monge allow it to track missiles and satellites. There are two navigation radars and a DRBV 15C air surveillance radar installed. The intelligence systems are a Stratus Gascogne, two Armor-radarsystemy, two Savoie and Antares missile-tracking radars, a laser-radar, and an optical tracking unit, furthermore 14 antennas for telemetry.

The ship is painted white, because the usual used darker grey of warships would heat up the ship much more and may cause malfunctions of the electronic systems inside.^{[citation needed]}