{"id":198024,"date":"2021-03-09T20:50:12","date_gmt":"2021-03-09T17:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/france-conducts-first-military-drills-in-space\/"},"modified":"2021-03-09T20:50:12","modified_gmt":"2021-03-09T17:50:12","slug":"france-conducts-first-military-drills-in-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/france-conducts-first-military-drills-in-space\/","title":{"rendered":"#France conducts first military drills in space"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#France conducts first military drills in space<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

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France has begun its first military exercises in space to test its ability to defend its satellites, in a sign of the growing competition between world powers in Earth’s orbit.<\/p>\n


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Michel Friedling, the head of France’s newly created Space Command, called the exercises a “stress test of our systems” and said they “were a first for the French army and even a first in Europe.”<\/p>\n

Codenamed “AsterX” in a nod to the first French satellite Asterix from 1965, the drills will simulate the monitoring of a potentially dangerous space object, as well as a threat to a satellite.<\/p>\n

“A series<\/a> of events app<\/a>ear and create crisis situations or threats against our space infrastructure, but not only this,” Friedling told reporters from the Space Command headquarters in Toulouse in southwest France.<\/p>\n

The new US Space Force and German space agencies are taking part in the French exercises, which began on Monday and will run until Friday.<\/p>\n

France’s Space Command was announced in 2019 and is set to number 500 people by 2025.<\/p>\n

“Our allies and adversaries are militarising space… we need to act,” Defence Minister Florence Parly said at the time.<\/p>\n

She said that France planned to develop anti-satellite laser weapons and new surveillance capabilities to close the gap with rivals China, Russia and the United States.<\/p>\n

Investments in the space programme are set to reach 4.3 billion euros ($5 billion) over the 2019-2025 budget period\u2014a fraction of the amount spent by the United States or China.<\/p>\n

In 2018, France accused Russia of trying to intercept transmissions from a Franco-Italian satellite used by both nations’ armies for secure communications.<\/p>\n

The Russian satellite Louch-Olymp allegedly approached the Athena-Fidus satellite in what French authorities called “an act of espionage.”<\/p>\n\n

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France to develop anti-satellite laser weapons: minister\n <\/p><\/div>\n

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\n \u00a9 2021 AFP<\/p>\n

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Citation<\/strong>:
\n France conducts first military drills in space (2021, March 9)
\n retrieved 9 March 2021
\n from https:\/\/phys.org\/news<\/a>\/2021-03-france-military-drills-space.html<\/p>\n

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