Protecting orbital systems is an industrial, technological and strategic sovereignty challenge that cannot be shied away from, says Nicolas Frouvelle, Head of Space Marketing and Communications at Sopra Steria's CS Group.
Since 2019, NATO has formally recognised space as an operational domain on a par with air, sea and cyber. Satellites have become infrastructure as critical as power grids or telecommunications networks and defence spending on space is rising across Europe.
In this context, protecting orbital systems is no longer just the preserve of government agencies. It is an industrial, technological and strategic sovereignty challenge, taken up daily by companies such as Sopra Steria's CS group.
Stealthy rendez-vous between satellites, GPS jamming in operational theatres and attacks on ground control centres are threats once confined to science fiction but which are now part of defence operators’ day-to-day reality. Russia has, for instance, conducted documented jamming operations against the Starlink constellations deployed in Ukraine, with potential implications for military communications and drone navigation.
“We have had to harden space missions to reflect a more strained geopolitical environment,” says Nicolas Frouvelle. “In the past, hacking a satellite or firing on an object in orbit would have been unthinkable. Now we factor such scenarios into operational systems.”
Against this backdrop, Sopra Steria’s CS Group has structured its response around three pillars: securing ground operations, ensuring data integrity and strengthening the cyber resilience of control centres.
From monitoring to protection: ground segments on the front line
Space threats do not play out solely in orbit. Ground control centres are as vulnerable a target as the satellites themselves, whether through cyber attacks or signal interference –and it is this link in the chain that the company is seeking to reinforce.
“We are developing ground segments capable of detecting abnormal behaviour, using orbitography software enhanced with AI processing,” says Frouvelle. The company’s monitoring systems, including ASTREK – designed to federate European space surveillance actors – continuously catalogue the trajectory of every object in orbit. Any unexplained manoeuvre triggers an alert, since a satellite deviating from its nominal orbit without clear justification may signal a hostile approach.
Such incidents have already been observed, notably with the Russian Luch/Olymp satellites – sometimes dubbed “zombie satellites” – which are officially inactive but appear to reactivate, at least partially, to conduct manoeuvres deemed suspicious.
It is also essential to detect and track counterspace activities such as anti-satellite (ASAT) tests, already carried out by Russia, the US, China and India, and reportedly under development in North Korea.
Securing control and monitoring centres relies on “zero trust” architectures designed to contain the spread of intrusions within systems. Sopra Steria’s CS Group is also working with AIKO Space to anticipate satellite failures using artificial intelligence, adding a predictive layer to reactive monitoring.
Protection extends to the data chain itself. “We have systems capable of detecting when telemetry received from a satellite does not match expectations,” says Frouvelle. If a signal has been jammed or altered, operators are alerted before critical decisions are made on the basis of compromised data.
Data sovereignty: the challenge of secure interoperability
The question of sovereignty extends beyond protecting satellites. It concerns Europe’s ability to access, independently, the data essential to both military and civilian operations. Dependence remains significant – the US GPS system continues to be the operational benchmark, while Galileo remains more limited in its applications, and space surveillance still relies heavily on data provided by US allies.
Programmes such as IRIS² for sovereign connectivity, and EU SST for monitoring objects in orbit, point towards greater autonomy. New industrial players are contributing to this ecosystem, including Aldoria in telescopes and Look Up Space in radar systems.
“The greatest threat for Europeans is access to information,” explains Frouvelle. “If a power such as the US were to cut data flows, it would be problematic.”
Sopra Steria’s CS Group’s response lies in multi-level confidentiality architectures, designed to restrict or enable data access depending on the operational context, including in crisis scenarios. “The aim is to manage data storage across multiple locations, secure it at several levels, while maintaining interoperability between European systems,” says Frouvelle.
Multidomain operations: space at the core of the connected battlefield
Beyond infrastructure protection, the orbital domain now acts as a connector across all operational environments – land, air, maritime and cyber. This is reflected in so-called multidomain operations, where ground forces, aircraft, drones and naval vessels operate in seamless coordination, linked in real time via secure satellite communications.
“Space has become the layer that integrates with all others, enabling the design of modern operations in a transparent battlespace,” says Frouvelle. This integration requires absolute reliability of incoming data.
An incident prior to the war in Ukraine illustrates the risk. A French navy vessel was subjected to GPS spoofing, receiving false navigation coordinates without detection. “If you automate everything with AI and the data is wrong, the consequences are severe,” he says.
For this reason, Frouvelle advocates gradual autonomy rather than full automation. Systems can take over repetitive tasks, but human validation remains essential for any critical decision.
Towards European strategic autonomy
Looking ahead, Frouvelle identifies three priorities for Europe. Deploying a sovereign constellation such as IRIS² to reduce reliance on third-party networks; expanding sensor networks dedicated to low Earth orbit, now more strategically significant than geostationary orbit; and developing data management systems capable of handling the surge in volumes generated by the proliferation of satellites.
“With our new data management systems, we can handle these volumes where older systems struggle with performance,” he says. The challenge is not purely technical. Instead, it is about building a European industrial ecosystem capable of meeting its own needs, in both peacetime and crisis.
In this context of accelerating space defence budgets, Sopra Steria, through its CS Group division, is pursuing an explicitly dual-use strategy. Systems developed for defence – from orbital surveillance to cyber-securing control centres – have natural applications in civil crisis management and the protection of critical infrastructure. Far from diluting defence expertise, this convergence strengthens both its durability and its economic relevance.