The militarization of space increases: BAVS 101 opens its spatial command in Toulouse, France in a few days. A strategic reaction to the growing threats of competing forces. We tell you everything.
“If the ricans will make the Ricaners the planet Fart, I will appear wisely on my bike,” sang Renaud 1983. France is well decided not to be on the trailer of the spatial military programs. Tuesday, July 2, decisive upper limit in the Tricolor defense strategy, Toulouse opens its BAVS 101, the first air base with a spatial calling. Near the CNE location in the heart of the French and the European space ecosystem is the seat of space command (CDE).
500 people by 2030
When Renaud sings the “deserter”, the United States prepares for the creation of its space command in 1985. In summer 2019 it will be reactivated three days before the French space command was created. As the French are not always too late from a shuttle. At a time when US militarized space programs participate in more than 20,000 people, the space command in Toulouse will house 500 employees by 2030. Returned from the conventional air infrastructure, the BAVS 101 will organize several essential operating units: “The Cosmos mission. The mission is the mission. Monitoring.
Yoda and Toutatis, High Tech weapons to defend our interests in space? “I will not fall into the details of the capacities,” warns Laurent Rigal, who still consists of “demonstrators made of small satellites that are able to operate an Inamic satellite in a framework of protection and defense”. Understand: If an enemy satellite approaches a little too close, Yoda could set a laser (Saber). These two jewelry should have perfected crawling or dazzling agents.
Room: conflict zone
Because the one who organizes the space on the ground. After the end of the Cold War, the United States redesigned their power model through the revolution for military matters (RMA). Emphasis on strategic use of information technologies in which the room plays a key role: imaging, transmission, data production. This approach made it possible to make the armed forces more effective, in particular by providing information for the tactical level of the fighter.
This technological progress, which was also taken over by the Allies, excited a reaction of powers such as China and Russia, which developed spatial offensive capacities. The goal: to challenge the use of space by the western powers. “Our competitors realized that what made our strength also had a form of susceptibility, without information technologies that we had less efficiency,” analyzes Colonel Rigal. The room is indeed a strategic theater of confrontation between great powers.
Among the “competitors” countries -military euphemism to avoid the appointment of the opponent -China, for example, showed an anti -Zell rocket in 2007 and doubled the number of rubble in space by testing. This was the case of the Russians in 2021. In 2018, Russia also carried out an Inamic maneuver and tried to hack the military satellite Athena fidus with its satellite lynx Olympus. The Space command based in Toulouse therefore collects data from data to map, identify and prioritize threats.
BAVS 101, an infrastructure estimated at 80 million euros, will include a new building, the delivery of which is expected in autumn 2025. You will also house the NATO Excellence Center (COE) near the CNES.
Baptism and celebrations
The new air base (BAVS 101) is baptized under the name of the general of Robert Aubinière, which is in the struggles of free France, then in resistance before it has been arrested and deported. After his return, he will lead the Special Equipment Test Center (CEES) and be the first director of the CNES. A scientific and military heritage that wants to maintain the new basis on the occasion of its inauguration for July 2 at the Place du Capitole. From 11 a.m., visitors will be invited to explore interactive stocks under the direction of the armed forces and the space manufacturer, to take part in demonstrations and to take part in haunting experiences. The official ceremony takes place at 5 p.m., followed by an air parade, then a music performance in the evening.