For several months, Mersat 5, a satellite launched in 2020, has been dormant in graveyard orbit, 36,300 km from Earth, where end-of-life satellites are sent. Until he woke up in the last few days and proceeded to release two nanosatellites which came dangerously close to two French military satellites, with not really peaceful ambitions. While on the ground enemy superpowered lasers tried to interfere with the data collection of other satellites by blinding them and jamming actions were launched.
Enough to put the members of the Space Command on the coals in the face of this coordinated space attack. What was the purpose of theAsterX exercise, a fictitious operation intended to prepare troops for real space threats. This year, it took place within the framework of the large-scale military operation “Orion”, which put more than 7,000 soldiers from all armies into action on French soil.
From the Toulouse Space Center, where the future premises of the Space Command will come out of the ground in 2025, military specialists in these matters have done everything to thwart more than twenty dummy attacks of all kinds carried out by the State, just as fictitious, baptized Mercury.
Prepare response scenarios
One of the solutions was to target the site which managed enemy satellites from the ground or even “to make evasive maneuvers in order to be far from whoever is attacking us”, indicates Lieutenant Léa, head of threat assessment. for this event which mobilized more than 200 people, including civilians, members of CNES and private companies in the space sector. Like the company specializing in the design of MBDA missiles, which proposed a reactive launch solution that allows objects to be put into orbit quickly. Or others who work on cyberattacks.
“In the context of the Ukrainian conflict, the first shot took place in the space domain, a cybernetic attack, the Russians thus showed their desire to use space as a vector of their power. Time plays against us, not to know if we will one day go to war in space or if it is a zone of conflict, rather when because it has already happened, we are there. Space is becoming an area of conflict, ”says General Philippe Adam, the head of the Space Command.
Over the past year, its teams have been able to observe abnormal behavior in this “grey zone”, threats of rapprochement made by the Russians, jamming actions against the Starlink satellite communication network. The Kremlin has launched satellites, mainly military, with a vengeance in recent months, and in low orbit raised the December note of the Center for Strategic Aerospace Studies (CESA). Over the first eleven months of 2022, thirteen satellites were launched, equipped with radars or even able to “locate and identify potential targets at sea”. Enough to collect a lot of information.
“On several occasions since 2013, Russia has deployed inspection satellites, the best known of which is undoubtedly Louch Olymp. Similarly, a Kosmos-2543 sub-satellite, itself “released” directly into orbit by the 2542 on December 6, 2019, followed the trajectory of the American imaging satellite USA 245 on several occasions. And last August, Moscow placed a new spy satellite, Kosmos-2558, in the same orbit as that of a US military satellite, USA-326.
“Today, we can clearly see that the attention of the Chinese is focused on a competition with the United States, this is probably the case for the Russians too, but the problem is that when the Russians go to war they are doing it in Europe, and that is of particular concern to us. Today, our attention is therefore more focused on what Russia is doing because they can directly threaten our interests,” continues General Philippe Adam.
Yoda, a Cerberus for French military satellites
Especially since the latter has a technological lead in the military space field. It has the famous Louch Olymp, the patrol boat which has been in orbit since 2014 and will regularly sniff in the wake of satellites from other countries. In 2017, he even got a little too close to the French military satellite Athena-Fidus, which specializes in secure military communications.
To catch up, the French Army is working on its own patrol boat called Yoda, the acronym for “Eyes in Orbit for an Agile Demonstrator”. Responsible for acting as bodyguards for our installations in orbit, it should be in geostationary orbit by 2025. means of flushing out spies from space or making the enemy react.
And for this, its teams do not hesitate to turn to the world of start-ups. Like the young shoot Exotrail. “We are cooperating with it to simulate satellite maneuvers in order to know the intervention times, but also the energy consumption that this will entail for the satellite, because this consumption reduces its lifespan”, indicates Colonel Quéant, head of the capabilities division within the Space Command. Or beacons from the technology of the Internet of Things that will make it possible to detect from space where people are or if a container is open in the depths of Africa.
Because if the battle is being played out hundreds of kilometers above our heads, it has real consequences on Earth too, whether for soldiers or civilians. Because if a belligerent had the bad idea to touch satellites of the GPS system, a section of the world economy would collapse.