exclusive
The BND is to get its own spy satellites in order to become less dependent on foreign partner services and companies. But the start is postponed again.
If the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) is following what is happening in the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant or in the parking lot in front of it these days, if the secret service wants to analyze military installations in Russia, China or North Korea from above, then satellite images are of great importance.
But the BND is dependent on help: either the Bundeswehr has to help with its reconnaissance satellites, or a foreign partner service or a commercial provider of such images.
Always delays
The BND itself is blind in space: the first satellite of its own should have been orbiting the earth since 2022. Most recently, it was said that the satellites of the foreign secret service would finally be ready for use in 2024.
After research by WDR and NDR However, the start is delayed again. The BND will probably not be able to launch its satellites into space until 2025, as a government spokesman confirmed on request. It is “a project with a high level of planning complexity,” it is said in general.
For the federal government, the renewed postponement is a setback. The project had already started in 2016. The federal government is said to have invested more than half a billion euros in this and commissioned the Bremen-based space company OHB to do so.
But something always came up. Two years ago, BND boss Bruno Kahl spoke of a “delay on the production side.” One thing is clear: time is of the essence. Space is becoming increasingly important geopolitically.
part of the national security strategy
The recently presented national security strategy states, for example: “In recent years, space has also been of growing importance for our security.” The military use of space has gained considerable importance for modern armed forces. “The federal government will therefore pay more attention to space as a strategic dimension and expand its capabilities in this area.”
So far, only the Bundeswehr in Germany has its own reconnaissance satellites, both radar and communication satellites. They are controlled by the space command in Uedem, North Rhine-Westphalia, and provide reconnaissance data from war and crisis zones. Such recordings are also intended to protect Bundeswehr soldiers in action.
Optical satellites are not yet available
With the three radar satellites of the Bundeswehr’s SARAH system, the first of which was launched in June 2022 by Elon Musk with the help of the US company SpaceX, high-resolution images can be generated even when there is a closed cloud cover. However, if the sky is clear, even more precise recordings are provided by optical satellites, which the BND is now supposed to receive as part of the GEORG project.
Such systems can not only help to photograph military reconnaissance targets more precisely and in more detail, but also help the secret services to create better situational pictures in other situations – for example in regions where there have been natural disasters such as floods or earthquakes. At the beginning of the corona pandemic, Western secret services also used satellites to find out how the situation in China or Iran was developing.
It was possible to observe from space that the parking lots in front of Chinese hospitals were unusually full early on. In Iran, on the other hand, one could see that mass graves were apparently being dug because the death rate was much higher than publicly communicated.
Depends on help from other services
In some states, the different espionage techniques are divided between several authorities. For example, the USA has a secret service, the National Security Agency (NSA), which is exclusively responsible for the electronic and technical procurement of information, i.e. the monitoring of telephone calls or e-mails. In addition, since the 1990s there has been the National Geospatial Agency (NGA), which operates spy satellites and makes the recordings available to other secret services and the military.
The BND works closely with its American partners – but the service also repeatedly acquires images from commercial providers. But this business involves risks: Anyone who orders pictures from a specific region and a specific time reveals what they are interested in. And that in relation to foreign companies. In order to disguise the specific reconnaissance goals, many recordings can be ordered – but that costs money.
No consensus
Nevertheless, the acquisition of its own spy satellites was controversial from the start. Above all, it is said that the Federal Chancellery under Angela Merkel wanted to equip the service with such technology. When in 2014 it was closely followed who was clandestinely moving in eastern Ukraine, it is said that private providers stopped delivering for several days. Germany was blind – that shouldn’t happen again.
However, the BND leadership at the time is said to have been rather skeptical. They preferred to use the millions to modernize the existing technical surveillance systems. There are also more than enough satellite images on the market. The problem is the correct evaluation. But there was a lack of staff.
At times, deaf experts are said to have been deployed, who were able to analyze the recordings very precisely due to their often specially trained eyesight. Research is now being carried out into technical solutions that can be used to evaluate satellite images more quickly and effectively, for example with the help of artificial intelligence.