The French Space Command is organizing the sixth edition of its annual exercise, SparteX, in Toulouse, to demonstrate France's operational capability in a domain now considered a theater of confrontation in its own right. For military authorities, satellites have become indispensable to ground operations, but also vulnerable: a strategic asset that can become a weakness if an adversary decides to target orbital infrastructure.
Conducted from February 8 to 27, the exercise involved approximately 200 participants, including French military personnel, representatives from CNES and the aerospace industry, as well as delegations from twelve allied countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Germany. The teams faced a simulated hostile nation, using 4,000 satellites, to test their response to multiple threats.
This increase in power is linked to the explosion in the number of satellites.
Officials at the Space Command emphasize that space has become denser at a rapid pace: from some 2,200 satellites in 2020, the number is projected to reach approximately 13,000 by 2025, a massive increase driven largely by the Starlink constellation. In this context, space is presented as an operational environment comparable to land, sea, air, or cyberspace, where direct issues of sovereignty and national security are at stake.
The SparteX scenario incorporates risks deemed realistic: offensive satellites, surface attacks (missiles, lasers, electromagnetic pulses), and espionage. The exercise was designed in parallel with Orion, another military maneuver launched at the same time, intended to train French and allied forces to achieve air superiority, a crucial step before any major operation.
