Aspiring to rebalance the partnership with the United States with the aim of making Europe independent of the American GPS system by 2020 – at least to offer an alternative – the satellite system Galileo has been shut down since July 11. This incident raises real concerns about the Europeans' ability to guarantee the integrity of their satellite system and their own autonomy in military decision-making.
According to the press release from theEuropean Satellite Navigation Systems Agency (GSA) dated July 15, 2019, the European satellite positioning system Galileo « is currently affected by a technical incident linked to its ground infrastructure » having provoked « a temporary interruption of initial navigation and synchronization services ". Although the failure is now known, the European Commission – the only one authorized to comment on the subject – wanted to be reassuring by emphasizing that it is the very purpose of the pilot phase to test the robustness of the system. Note that no information on the nature or cause of the incident has been communicated. In fact, the incident is serious and hardly masks the embarrassment of a Europe which seeks to reduce its dependence on foreign systems.
Indeed, Galileo is the perfect illustration of the satellite system which offers strong decision-making capacity to the authorities in a sovereign manner. Although designed for an exclusively civilian purpose, it offers a secure service reserved for government uses because such a system is simply essential for military needs. For example, the guidance of so-called “smart” missiles can only be done today through the use of the GPS system. The French forces thus reached an agreement with the United States to benefit from the signals from their GPS system, but at any time the Americans reserve the right to degrade them. It is to compensate for this dependence that the European system Galileo is supposed to bring real added value, a key element in the autonomy of decision-making.
Although space imagery has become an essential tool for politico-military decisions at the strategic level but also at lower operational levels, we must not forget that the real center of gravity of a device is located on the ground. In the present case, it is indeed the Fucino station which constitutes the epicenter of the breakdown and this incident reminds us of an element which still seems little understood by politicians: the ground stations but also the industrial tool which produces the infrastructures necessary for the launch of orbital platforms are all potential and vulnerable targets. Thus, in a logic of increasingly assertive spatial confrontation, there is an imperative need to protect space infrastructures on the ground.
This incident reminds us of the fragility of a place which is essential to our daily lives and to the good health of our economies but which has been weaponized for several years now. The dependence of our societies on Space seems gigantic and yet, the threats and vulnerabilities have never been so significant. This observation calls for a necessary evolution of our doctrine for the use of Space because ensuring order in Space means guaranteeing security on earth. In this regard, France's shift towards an "offensive" space doctrine is going in the right direction, but this initiative will necessarily have to be accompanied by a major space strategy coupled with a budgetary effort that matches our ambitions.
NB: since this article was written, the signal from the Galileo satellites has returned to normal. For the moment, we still do not know the reasons for this major malfunction.
Axel Trinquier – Specialist in European defense issues
