France prepares for space war with AsterX European exercise

In silent orbit around Earth, a potentially hostile satellite approaches an Allied communications node, but its intentions are unknown.

The French Space Force has determined the move was deliberate, and intelligence indicates the enemy spacecraft is equipped with a robotic arm that could deorbit friendly assets. There is. The French-led Blue Team will move the Patroller satellite into a protected position to deter any hostilities by the US-led Red Team – a capability France is working on but currently lacks. –.

Col. Mathieu Bernabé, who leads the exercise, said that although hypothetical, the scenarios played out Thursday during Europe’s largest space warfare exercise were believable and based on real-world capabilities. During the event, called AsterX 2024, some 190 participants from France and 15 partner countries trained on everything from jammed space communications to maneuvering hostile satellites to eliminate friendly orbiting satellites. ing.

General Philippe Adam, Commander of the French Space Force, said: “This type of training is not only absolutely essential for operators, but also for our processes, the training of what we call operational readiness. is ready to fight a real war.” Presentation of the exercise in Toulouse, southwestern France. “This is as realistic as an exercise scenario can be. Obviously, it’s inspired by a lot of things that you’re probably aware of.”

Adam said “unfriendly actions” by Russian satellites occur “all the time” in all orbits, with chaotic and unannounced approaches.

Adam said space is becoming increasingly dangerous and militarized. Earth’s orbit is becoming busier with increased competition between commercial companies and nations, while satellite capabilities and maneuverability have also improved significantly.

Space-based systems have become an integral part of military operations, from communications to ballistic missile detection, navigation, planning, and targeting. Meanwhile, the value of the space economy rose 8% to $546 billion in 2022, according to the nonprofit Space Foundation.

French President Emmanuel Macron created the Military Space Force in 2019 with the aim of raising the country’s awareness of the space security situation and strengthening the protection of satellites. According to data published by Statista, France had 91 satellites in orbit in February 2023, the most of any European Union country.

Adam said AsterX is “absolutely essential” to strengthen the efforts of the French Space Force, and although it is conducting operations, it is not yet operational. The command will pass the initial stages of operational fitness when it moves to its new headquarters in Toulouse next year, with the aim of achieving full operational capability by 2030.

France is hosting the AsterX Wargames for the fourth year, pitting a French-led blue team against the fictional nation of Mercure, an adversary seeking to destabilize the nation of Aanland. What’s new this year is that the Red Team, which has “substantial” space resources, will be played by members of the U.S. Space Force, marking the first time a foreign country will play the antagonist.

Although the exercise simulates more than 4,000 objects in orbit and rotates in a simulated space for several days before the exercise, the blue and red teams are not fully aware of the enemy’s spatial capabilities. yeah. Knowledge gaps create intellectual challenges and the U.S. playing red team creates a non-deterministic scenario, Bernabe said.

“AsterX is a laboratory where we face situations, experiment with solutions, and get feedback,” says Bernabé. “The challenge is to train how to manage a space situation, but backed up by an inter-military environment and a multi-domain environment (which also means a cyber environment and an information environment), this scenario allows us to have a full spectrum We will provide conditions for you to play.”

Bernabe said having the Americans play on the red team brings an added element of surprise to practice.

The exercise will run until March 15 and includes 14 different types of threats and 23 events in a scenario of a gradual escalation of the crisis towards high-intensity war. Adam said that while crisis situations are useful exercises because there is “a lot of ambiguity” to resolve, high-intensity scenarios are in some ways simpler because “anything goes”. .

worst case scenario

According to Adam, the worst-case scenario for an orbital conflict would be an all-out war in which a completely unchecked enemy attacks satellites “completely indiscriminately.” ‘Then we would lose satellites everywhere and we would lose resources. , we’re going to create rubble, and it’s a bit of a snowball effect,” Adam said. Failure to stop these adversaries quickly will create “problems that will last for decades.” With debris being generated everywhere, some orbits become completely inoperable. ”

Through this exercise, France also aims to develop a common culture on space operations with allies and partners under realistic threat situations. In addition to the United States, AsterX includes the United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea, and many EU partners.

“We’ve been trying things out together, so after this exercise we understood each other better about the nature of the responses we could provide,” Bernabe said.

There are “so many” interoperability challenges between national space forces, Adam said, including different vocabularies for the same thing and different procedures and policies. Adam said the French Space Force aims to have about 500 people by 2025, up from about 350 people now. He said partner countries such as Japan, Germany and Italy were creating similar 300 to 600-person commands, adding that human resources were a “very big issue” for everyone. added.

These goals equate to approximately 13,900 U.S. Space Force personnel at the end of December. France has no ambition to create something that would require “being as wealthy as the Americans,” the general said.

In addition to the new headquarters in Toulouse, France’s main priority is to put a patrol satellite into orbit, Adam said. He said the country also needs to strengthen the ground-based part of its space capabilities and needs more space surveillance sensors.

He said the country’s agile Yoda satellite demonstrator, which has been held up by a lack of launch slots, could become operational “in the next few months,” followed by operational space patrol capabilities within a year or two. said.

“These are not very large satellites, and they are not very complex satellites,” Adam said. “The most complicated thing is knowing how to use them.” And that’s what France is preparing with his AsterX.