French military leader warns of increased 'hostile' activity in space

By Cassell Bryan-Low and Tim Hepher

PARIS (Reuters) - France’s top military space official has warned of intensifying "hostile or unfriendly" activity in space, particularly by Russia, joining a growing chorus of Western powers publicly warning about a rapidly growing security threat.

There has been a significant spike in hostile activity since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Major General Vincent Chusseau told Reuters. 

In his first interview with international media since taking the helm of French Space Command last month, he said adversaries, especially Russia, have diversified methods of disrupting satellites, with activity such as jamming, lasers and cyberattacks having become commonplace. 

UKRAINE CONFLICT HIGHLIGHTS SPACE RISKS

The Ukraine conflict shows "space is now a fully-fledged operational domain," Chusseau said.

France, Europe’s largest government spender in space, publicly accused Moscow in 2018 of attempting to spy on its secret communications by sneaking up on a Franco-Italian military satellite with a prowling spacecraft a year earlier, but has not detailed suspect manoeuvres since then.

The Russian defence ministry and Russian space agency Roscosmos did not immediately reply to requests for comment. 

The Kremlin says Western powers have unfurled a massive hybrid war against Russia, including propaganda, cyberattacks and intelligence operations. Moscow says it opposes any weapons in space and has denied assertions by the United States that Russia has launched weapons into Earth's orbit that are capable of inspecting and attacking other satellites.

China, the world’s second-largest government spender on space behind America, is rapidly developing its space capabilities.

"Each day shows dizzying progress – launching ever more satellites for new constellations, developing modes of action that go beyond what we had seen before," Chusseau said.

WESTERN NATIONS WARN OF THREATS TO SATELLITES

The United States, Canada and the UK are among other Western countries publicly warning about increased threats to satellites, which are essential for militaries and economies, from banking to energy management.

"This economic and military dependence on space is increasingly being held at risk," the head of UK Space Command Major General Paul Tedman said in a speech last week in London. The threat is growing "in scale, in sophistication, and in speed".

Canada's military space chief, speaking alongside Chusseau at a conference in Paris on Tuesday, said there are now more than 200 anti-satellite weapons in orbit.

"That is a shocking number,” said Canada's Brigadier General Christopher Horner. He added that those pose a risk to everything from satellite communications to Earth observation to space-domain awareness, or the ability to monitor what is happening in space.

Western countries are responding by bolstering their own space-based capabilities.

GERMANY IS ENHANCING SPACE DEFENCES

The German government is “absolutely determined to quickly enhance our capabilities and defend our national systems,” Major General Michael Traut, head of German Space Command, told the conference hosted by French consulting firm Novaspace.

He said the German military is designing space defences including a multi-orbit satellite constellation to be built in stages with the first one completed in 2029. 

Chusseau said one of France’s priorities is increasing resilience of space assets including in the rapidly-evolving area of low-orbit constellations, driven by dramatic growth in Elon Musk’s Starlink network. France recently announced plans to increase its stake in Paris-based satellite operator Eutelsat, whose OneWeb low-Earth orbit network competes with Musk’s Starlink.

Although France and its allies rarely openly discuss offensive capabilities, Chusseau told the conference another of his priorities is to accelerate the ability to carry out "a wide spectrum of effects in space...not only to see and understand, but also to act.”

France has announced a series of demonstrator satellites to help patrol in orbit and monitor adversaries. The aim is also to acquire surface-to-space capabilities “to deny, prohibit and disrupt” adversaries, French Space Command told Reuters.

(Reporting by Cassell Bryan-Low, Tim Hepher; Editing by Sharon Singleton)