Paris (AFP)

Thousands of space debris, constellations prone to proliferation and a little too curious machines approaching certain satellites: the surveillance of space has become a major stake for the States in order to preserve their economic and military interests.

The subject is on the menu of the ministerial conference of the European Space Agency (ESA) Wednesday and Thursday in Seville and is at the heart of the strategy of space defense presented in July by France.

Some 8,950 satellites - of which 2,100 are active - have been in orbit since 1957, according to ESA. And some 23,000 objects of more than 10 centimeters counted by the US Army revolve around the Earth at more than 20,000 km / h. At this speed, any collision can destroy the satellite and generate more debris.

This debris comes from pieces of rockets and two events: the destruction by China of one of its satellites by a missile in 2007 and the collision between a Russian military satellite and a communications satellite in 2009.

The problem will only get worse: launches will multiply to put in orbit the constellations intended to provide high speed internet. The OneWeb constellation will include 648 satellites. Kuiper, owned by US billionaire Jeff Bezos, will consist of 3,236. SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk, has already launched since May 120 satellites of its constellation Starlink, which could count up to 42,000.

One of the Starlink satellites has almost caused a collision, forcing ESA to deviate from its trajectory in early September to avoid the disaster.

The knowledge of the spatial situation is therefore "a prerequisite for commercial exploitation (...) and the conduct of military operations" in space, postulates the French Ministry of the Armed Forces in its report on the defense space strategy.

"Spying satellites, scrambled, or dazzled: the means to hinder, neutralize or destroy the enemy's space capabilities exist and develop," said Minister Florence Parly in July in presenting this strategy.

- Surveillance from space -

In 2017, the Russian spy-satellite Louch-Olymp had sought to approach the French-Italian military satellite Athena-Fidus. Since then, he "continues to forage from satellite to satellite," says a senior officer of the Air Force.

Added to this are the "kamikaze" satellites, such as the Russian Cosmos 2499 that can maneuver to hit another satellite, or gear with arms to grab another satellite, like the Chinese Shiyan-7.

France is "one of the few nations to have its own surveillance capabilities," according to Space Command boss General Michel Friedling.

It has the GRAVES and SATAM radars for monitoring low orbits (less than 2,000 kilometers, where most of the debris is located), and the three CNRS Tarot telescopes and seven Arianegroup GeoTracker telescopes for the geostationary orbit. (36,000 kilometers).

But despite the provision of data by the United States, the "understanding of the spatial situation (...) remains very fragmentary and very inadequate," General Friedling nuanced before the deputies in February, calling for increased European cooperation.

Industrialists are working on space monitoring projects from space, and this is something we are working very hard on, "says Martin Robillard, director of government sales for space systems at Airbus.

The European group is thus modifying its SpaceTug project, initially conceived as a satellite refueler, to make it a space observation platform for the geostationary orbit.

Thales Alenia Space (TAS) and its partner Telespazio have invested in the Canadian company Northstar, which intends to eventually launch 40 satellites "capable of monitoring all orbits," according to Benoît Hancart, director of institutional relations at TAS. The first will be launched in 2021.

"In the proliferation of objects in space, we want to be able to identify the one with abnormal behavior", a machine that performs a maneuver, for example, says a soldier specializing in space. "But if Americans put a wiretapping device on one of the hundreds of satellites in a constellation, there is no way to find out."

© 2019 AFP