The most hidden secret of Minister Margarita Robles: spy satellites CSO
- Waiting for a national programme of electro-optical satellites
- The geostrategic situation urges satellite programmes
For more than five years, the Minister of Defence, Judge Margarita Robles, has maintained a veil of secrecy and the strictest confidentiality regarding Spain's participation in the so-called Optical Space Component or CSO (Composante Spatial Optique), a euphemism for France's most precise and high-resolution spy satellite programme.
Throughout the six years and nine months that she has held the post, Margarita Robles has not mentioned in any of her appearances before the Defence Committee of the Congress or the Senate a single word about the link between her department and the French CSO programme, much less about the economic and operational consequences of not having joined the French initiative at the appropriate time.
Nor have the three people who have successively held the senior post of Secretary of State for Defence under Robles said a word about it: Ángel Olivares, between June 2018 and June 2020; Esperanza Casteleiro, who took over from him until May 2022; and even less Amparo Valcarce, who now directs armaments and materiel policy.
In her appearance on 20 February before the few deputies present in the Defence Commission of the Carrera de San Jerónimo, Valcarce was verbose in explaining the importance of the launch and future commissioning of the Spanish secure communications satellite Spainsat NG-1 of the operator Hisdesat. But she did not even make a brief allusion to the CSO orbital constellation, which provides images to the Defence Staff of Admiral Teodoro López Calderón, which now has two platforms positioned in space and which will be completed imminently with the launch into orbit of a third device.
Manufactured by Airbus Space Systems France and Thales Alenia Space, this third powerful electronic eye is CSO-3, the last link in the triad of third-generation French spy satellites, part of the also French Multinational Satellite Imaging System or MUSIS, an acronym for MUltinational Space-based Imaging Systems. Weighing 3.6 tonnes, its positioning at an altitude of 800 kilometres — from where it will observe what happens day and night — is the responsibility of the new European launcher Ariane 6, in what will be its second launch and its first commercial flight, which will take place from French Guiana, on this day, Monday 3 March, at 17:24 Madrid time.
Waiting for a national programme of electro-optical satellites
This is a critical mission for two reasons. Because Ariane 6 is the heavy rocket that Brussels and the European Space Agency (ESA) have placed their trust in to provide Europe with a strategic capability that will give it independent access to outer space. Ariane 6 must prove that it is reliable. Its inaugural launch on 9 July 2024 was not a failure, but neither was it a complete success. The engineers of its main contractor, ArianeGroup, have had to identify all the technical deficiencies and correct them in the last eight months. So the next launch, codenamed VA263 - Ariane Flight Number 263 - must be a success no matter what... or the future of the new rocket will be seriously called into question.
But secondly, the CSO-3 is more than three years behind its two siblings in reaching space. One is its twin CSO-1, which was launched in December 2018 on a Russian Soyuz rocket. The official data is that it is positioned at a height of about 800 kilometres, is engaged in reconnaissance work and its high resolution is of the order of 30 centimetres. The other is CSO-2, which reached orbit in December 2020, also on a Soyuz launcher. Its working height is between 400 and 480 kilometres and it has a very high resolution - about 20 centimetres - because its function is to identify targets.
If we bear in mind that the estimated lifespan of the two electro-optical spies already in space is around 10 years, it is urgent that the French Armed Forces' military space reconnaissance system, which also provides similar services to those of Spain, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Sweden and Switzerland, be shut down as soon as possible. The above makes the second flight of Ariane 6 a very high-risk endeavour.
Why does the Minister of Defence remain silent about Spanish participation in the French CSO spy satellite system? In short, the absolute reserve dictated from Castellana 109 suggests that it is due to the discomfort derived from the inexistence of a national programme of high-resolution satellites in the visible and infrared spectrums. Also to the extra cost caused by Spain's late adhesion to the CSO, the amount of which is unknown.
Nor can it be ruled out that the senior political authorities in the Ministry of Defence are reluctant to recognise, no matter what the cost, that the interpretation work of the analysts at the Aerospace Observation Systems Centre (CESAEROB) and the Armed Forces Intelligence Centre (CIFAS) under the command of Lieutenant General Antonio Romero depends on the optical images provided by the French satellites. Undoubtedly, after their reception on land, some of them will be merged with the radar technology provided by the Spanish satellite Paz.
The geostrategic situation urges satellite programmes
Spanish access to the CSO programme, developed and led by the French Directorate General of Armament, in coordination with the French National Centre for Space Studies, is contemplated in the Master Plan for Space Systems. It is a document published by the Directorate General of Armament and Material when its director was Lieutenant General Juan Manuel García Montaño, and its first edition is dated as far back as March 2016.
The study proposes ‘maintaining existing space capabilities and achieving the necessary ones in the future’. Faced with the possibility that, for whatever reason, a high-resolution national optical capability could not be launched in the short term to replace the Helios 2 spy satellites, as was the case, the Master Plan already envisaged ‘Spain's participation in CSO’ as an alternative.
And that is what has been done, but at a late stage. Spain was a member of the was a French programme, Helios 2, based on two spy satellites. The system entered into service in December 2001, so that by 2016 it was already in its final years of life. When Emmanuel Macron chose Florence Parly to occupy the Ministry of Defence (2017-2022) after a brilliant career in business and public administration, the French minister personally assured Margarita Robles that the Helios 2 sensors would be switched off on 31 December 2021, and so it happened.
The Ministry of Defence reacted, and the Council of Ministers of 9 December 2020 authorised a contribution from the Ministry of Finance of 61.6 million euros between 2021 and 2027 for the image programming rights of the CSO system and the acquisition of the software and hardware of the CESAEROB ground segment 'to bridge the time gap between the end of the Helios 2‘s life and the entry into service in Spain of the CSO’. So, without Helios 2 images and without CSO either, it was necessary to turn to the international commercial image buying and selling market, mainly to the North American wholesaler Maxar, to continue feeding the analysts at CESAEROB and CIFAS and, ultimately, to the Operations Command.
In short, in view of the geostrategic situation that Europe is going through, the launch of the Ariane 6 rocket with CSO-3 on board scheduled for the afternoon of 3 March could be an unbeatable opportunity for the Ministry of Defence to explain to Spanish society and to the members of the Defence Committee of the Congress and Senate the importance for the Operations Command (MOPS) of the data and intelligence extracted from the analysis of CSO optical images. Lieutenant General José Antonio Agüero is in charge of the MOPS, responsible for safeguarding the lives and providing strategic security cover for the Spanish military personnel deployed on 14 different missions outside our borders.