All the more so given that the disappearance of SPOT-7 came just a few weeks after the French authorities detected a 
intelligence operation in Haute-Garonne in southwestern France. After discovering in early 2022 that a telecommunications antenna had been deployed without authorization by a company near Airbus and CNES sites, the French intelligence services and the judiciary — an investigation was opened by prosecutors in nearby town Saint-Gaudens — uncovered the truth a year later. The antenna in question was in fact a listening station targeting French satellites and tuned to their communication frequencies.
The antenna was located in the village of Boulogne-sur-Gesse at a distance that allowed it to spy on various strategic CNES and Airbus sites. These included the Issus Aussaguel teleport, which controls CNES's Earth observation satellites, notably the Pléiades satellites made by Airbus.
The hypothesis put forward by French experts "familiar" with the case is that China managed to intercept communications between Airbus and its satellites. This is believed to have allowed Beijing to secretly collect a wealth of information essential for carrying out hostile action. This action was allegedly carried out from Chinese territory and directed at a ground station communicating with SPOT-7, in Toulouse or Azerbaijan. Such an attack could be orchestrated by the Strategic Support Force (SSF) and Unit 61486 of PLA (PLA Unit 61486), which specialize in cyber espionage and interference with foreign orbital systems. On the Russian side, the entities trained in this type of electronic and cyber warfare are the 16th Centre of GRAU space intelligence, the Centre 18 of FSB domestic intelligence, and some within GRU military intelligence.
The coincidental timing between the listening station's discovery by the French authorities, who ended up issuing a warning to the company that owned the antenna in early 2023, and the sudden shutdown of SPOT-7 a few weeks later, on Mar 17, greatly intrigued French investigators. Did Beijing want to send a signal to Paris after its intelligence operation was exposed? Did the government take advantage of the situation to take action against SPOT-7? Or did China provide valuable intelligence to Russia, which then itself carried out an attack on the satellite that was proving useful for Kyiv?
These question marks are reinforced by the fact that the company under suspicion belongs to private Chinese actor Emposat, which is suspected of espionage by the Czech Republic and is well established in Azerbaijan, where it provides Azercosmos with several terrestrial satellite communication stations. "We don't have a smoking gun in this case," confided a high-level French security source. "But the body of evidence linking China to this case is still significant. Especially since we are aware of China's capabilities in this area."
These capabilities are not new. As early as 2011, the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission of the US Congress stated in its annual report that in Oct 2007 and July 2008, hackers sponsored by the government had used a ground station connection to disrupt the operation of NASA satellites Landsat 7 and Terra (EOS AM-1).
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intelligence operation in Haute-Garonne in southwestern France. After discovering in early 2022 that a telecommunications antenna had been deployed without authorization by a company near Airbus and CNES sites, the French intelligence services and the judiciary — an investigation was opened by prosecutors in nearby town Saint-Gaudens — uncovered the truth a year later. The antenna in question was in fact a listening station targeting French satellites and tuned to their communication frequencies.
The antenna was located in the village of Boulogne-sur-Gesse at a distance that allowed it to spy on various strategic CNES and Airbus sites. These included the Issus Aussaguel teleport, which controls CNES's Earth observation satellites, notably the Pléiades satellites made by Airbus.
The hypothesis put forward by French experts "familiar" with the case is that China managed to intercept communications between Airbus and its satellites. This is believed to have allowed Beijing to secretly collect a wealth of information essential for carrying out hostile action. This action was allegedly carried out from Chinese territory and directed at a ground station communicating with SPOT-7, in Toulouse or Azerbaijan. Such an attack could be orchestrated by the Strategic Support Force (SSF) and Unit 61486 of PLA (PLA Unit 61486), which specialize in cyber espionage and interference with foreign orbital systems. On the Russian side, the entities trained in this type of electronic and cyber warfare are the 16th Centre of GRAU space intelligence, the Centre 18 of FSB domestic intelligence, and some within GRU military intelligence.
The coincidental timing between the listening station's discovery by the French authorities, who ended up issuing a warning to the company that owned the antenna in early 2023, and the sudden shutdown of SPOT-7 a few weeks later, on Mar 17, greatly intrigued French investigators. Did Beijing want to send a signal to Paris after its intelligence operation was exposed? Did the government take advantage of the situation to take action against SPOT-7? Or did China provide valuable intelligence to Russia, which then itself carried out an attack on the satellite that was proving useful for Kyiv?
These question marks are reinforced by the fact that the company under suspicion belongs to private Chinese actor Emposat, which is suspected of espionage by the Czech Republic and is well established in Azerbaijan, where it provides Azercosmos with several terrestrial satellite communication stations. "We don't have a smoking gun in this case," confided a high-level French security source. "But the body of evidence linking China to this case is still significant. Especially since we are aware of China's capabilities in this area."
These capabilities are not new. As early as 2011, the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission of the US Congress stated in its annual report that in Oct 2007 and July 2008, hackers sponsored by the government had used a ground station connection to disrupt the operation of NASA satellites Landsat 7 and Terra (EOS AM-1).
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