In 2016, General Jean-Daniel Testé, then head of the Joint Space Command, said during a parliamentary hearing [CIE]revealed that a military telecommunications satellite in Syracuse had been targeted by “another, smaller object” for espionage purposes. But he was careful not to specify the origin.
“We are sure that the Russians, the Chinese and the Americans have developed systems aimed at observing and intercepting other countries' space systems as closely as possible, which raises serious security questions,” he said. – He still moved forward.
These “inspections” of French satellites – military and civilian – by “foraging engines” continued afterwards. As General Testé's successor, General Jean-Pascal Breton even went so far as to speak of “unfriendly” maneuvers by “certain countries”. But here too he refused to say anything more publicly.
We had to wait until September 2018 to find out more. During a visit to the National Center for Space Studies [CNES], Florence Parly, then Minister of the Armed Forces, accused the Russian Luch/Olymp “forager” machine of getting a little too close to Athena-Fidus, a very fast military telecommunications satellite developed as part of Franco-Italian cooperation four Launched into geostationary orbit years earlier. “Trying to listen to your neighbors isn’t just unkind. It is an act of espionage,” she said.
These French satellite approaches have justified the development of a space defense strategy, one of the priorities of which is to develop space capabilities within the framework of the ARES programme. This should make it possible to catalog all spacecraft in orbit, detect malicious actions and, above all, counteract them.
In the meantime, satellite approaches will continue. This was reported recently in particular by the specialized companies Look Up Space [France] and Slingshot Aerospace [États-Unis] that the Russian spy machine Luch/Olymp K-2 had shown great interest in the civil satellites Eutelsat 3B, Eutelsat 9B and Eutelsat KA-SAT 9A between April and October. A priori, this did not lead to an official reaction from the French authorities… What will happen to the affair uncovered by Intelligence OnLine on December 18?
Apparently Athena-Fidus isn't just of interest to the Russians… They're acting on behalf of the National Security Agency [NSA]the American electronic reconnaissance agency, the National Reconnaissance Office [NRO] would have maneuvered one of its foraging machines close to the Franco-Italian military satellite at a time when the General Directorate of Armaments [DGA] prepared to conduct the first qualification launch of the M51-3 strategic ballistic missile at Biscarrosse on November 18. And this “operation makes Balard shudder,” points out Intelligence OnLine.
The spy object in question would come from the NEMESIS program, the existence of which was revealed when Edward Snowden released classified NSA documents in 2013.
Currently this is based on two “Forager” satellites dedicated to electromagnetic intelligence, namely PAN [Paladium At Night, ou USA-207]launched in 2009, and CLIO, placed in geostationary orbit [comme son « aîné »] in 2014. Built by Lockheed-Martin, they can change their position to be placed close to the satellites whose communications they need to intercept.
Dutch researcher Marco Langbroek was one of the first to notice the “very unusual” behavior of PAN for a geostationary satellite. [USA-207]. This surprised him in the pages of The Space Review in 2016.
In the four years following its launch, “PAN moved to other positions at least nine times. “This is something you don’t normally do with a geostationary satellite because it consumes fuel and significantly shortens its operational life,” he wrote. And to note that such trips were made “in the vicinity of a commercial satellite phone satellite.” After this machine stopped moving in 2013, it started moving again in 2021. At least this is the observation of Dr. Langbroek.
That this “foraging” operation could coincide with the qualified launch of an M51-3 missile is not surprising, since programs related to French deterrence have always interested the United States and, for example, U-2 spy planes have been used for surveillance Nuclear testing at Muroroa as part of a CIA plan called Project Seeker.
Regardless, this case is embarrassing in more ways than one. As a reminder: France [comme l’Allemagne] joined the Combined Space Operations initiative in 2020 [CSpO] This is intended to be the intelligence equivalent of the “Five Eyes” with the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. This should make it possible to “better coordinate allied capabilities, increase their resilience to ensure support for multi-domain operations, ensure free access to space and protect assets located there, if necessary in a coalition are included.”
In addition, American forces are also invited to participate in the AsterX space exercise, organized by Space Command every year [CdE]. On the occasion of the latest edition of these maneuvers, the Air & Space Force [AAE] had highlighted the “progressive strengthening” of cooperation between France and the United States in the space field. And added that Washington's priority is to “build and deepen” its alliances.