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This exclusive Cogs of War interview is with Jean-François Morizur, the CEO and founder of Cailabs, a French company focused on ground-to-satellite laser optical communications. As satellites play a more critical and contested role than ever in global and defense communications, we asked him to share his thoughts on the emerging satellite-protection industry and growing a deep-tech company.

In popular techno-thrillers, major conflicts often begin with a sudden satellite-driven communications blackout. Which real-world capabilities now exist that make such scenarios plausible, and which threats are still more speculative than operational?

There certainly exist ways to cut people off from the internet — by cutting undersea cables or jamming satellites, for instance. And that’s no small thing. The internet isn’t just a means of accessing the news or social media — though getting accurate information is, of course, very important. It enables much of ordinary life. Banking, payments, logistics, transport, heating systems, ticketing, supply chains — all of these depend on the internet. During the recent protests in Iran, the state was able to stop at least 80 percent of all traffic, in part because, as the researcher Amir Rashidi has reported, the regime was able even to jam Starlink, which had preserved connectivity for the Iranians during the protests in 2022. So right away, you can see how an internet blackout can be used even domestically.

How much harm a blackout causes depends on a number of factors. One is the local digital infrastructure. If a country hosts its own data centres, then it can keep critical services running domestically. If it relies on systems that are hosted abroad, then the disruption will be more damaging. The banking systems in some countries depend on cross-border data flows, for example. If you cut those links, operations can stop.

The second key factor is geography. It’s very, very hard to isolate a country that is densely connected to its neighbours. Any given country in Europe is linked to those around it by a vast number of cables and routes. It’s very difficult to cut all of those connections and jam satellites. On the other hand, an island will be much more vulnerable. Taiwan is an obvious example. It’s far more doable to cut internet access in a place like that. That risk needs to be taken seriously.

Public debate often focuses on satellites themselves rather than the terrestrial infrastructure that supports them. Why does the ground segment receive less attention, and where are policymakers most dangerously complacent?

The simple answer is that the ground segment just doesn’t seem glamorous. One of the reasons why space has always captured the public imagination is because it is quite dramatic. A rocket taking off is an awe-inspiring event. That’s why people tune in to watch launches online. That doesn’t mean, however, that policymakers are complacent. It’s just that their focus drifts upwards.

What you do tend to see across many programs is that satellites are being launched years before the ground segment is fully ready. This may be common, but it’s also a problem. The system those satellites need isn’t fully operational. It’s particularly a problem for low Earth orbit satellites, which you want to use immediately and which have shorter lives than, say, geostationary orbit satellites. Losing the first year or two of a low Earth orbit satellite’s life is expensive.

It’s often because the ground segment isn’t considered as glamorous as rockets and satellites that it’s late to be fully operational. That, and because it’s assumed to be more straightforward to get ready. That assumption is wrong, but it persists.

Despite the growing centrality of space-based communications to modern warfare and global commerce, investment in satellite protection and resilience has lagged. What factors have slowed more proactive investment by the United States and its allies?

There’s at least one sense in which resilience hasn’t lagged. There are now many more satellites in orbit, and that, by itself, brings resilience. If a constellation uses thousands or even hundreds of satellites, then losing one makes little difference to the performance of the constellation as a whole. That’s not how it used to be: There were a far smaller number of geostationary orbit satellites, so losing one was a problem.

But I accept your point. There are weaknesses, and the key question we have to ask ourselves now is: Where are the single points of failure? One obvious example is the radio spectrum. If radio frequency links are jammed, it doesn’t matter how many satellites you have in orbit. All are affected at once. Iran, as I mentioned earlier, has just demonstrated this. Jamming is a system-wide problem.

Another is the supply chain. To build at scale, satellites are designed and constructed in the same way, using the same components. Industrialisation means homogeneity, and homogeneity means shared weaknesses. Therefore, if a common component has a certain vulnerability or flaw, then the entire constellation will be affected. That vulnerability is particularly pronounced in highly vertically integrated constellations. What they gain in efficiency, they can lose in resilience.

One solution to the problem posed by industrialisation is to have multiple suppliers work to a common standard while keeping the supply chains separate — this is what the Space Development Agency does. It greatly reduces the risk that a single failure will cascade across the whole system.

Deep-tech space companies rely on rare talent at the intersection of physics, software, and systems engineering. Where are the most serious talent bottlenecks today, and how do they affect long-term resilience?

Of course, talent matters a lot. But mindset arguably matters more. In deep tech space work, you need people who are comfortable with uncertainty. Engineers must be able to accept that things will fail, sometimes spectacularly. And they must be willing to learn from those failures and try again. It goes without saying that this takes an emotional toll. You might have spent years pouring your heart and soul into the construction of a certain system only to see it fall to pieces. To pick up those pieces and start all over again requires a certain resilience.

Much of the traditional space industry started out in defense programs where failure was to be avoided at all costs and it took a long time to build anything. That bred an approach that was careful, slow, and intolerant of risk. New space has changed that. What’s needed is rapid iteration, testing, a high tolerance for failure, and a willingness to learn and move on when things go awry. As you can imagine, that’s quite a shift, and it isn’t one that everyone finds easy. Of course, you strive to succeed at the first attempt, and sometimes you do. But failure is inevitable at some point, and you need to be able to see that part of the process, not an indictment of your ability.

But to come back to the original question, the rarity of talent at the intersection of physics, software, and systems engineering. European countries benefit from a relative wealth of talent compared to other geographies, based on good higher education and, sadly, a relative decline in manufacturing. This means that talents can be found, sometimes retrained from adjacent fields (and bringing precious new perspectives), for deep-tech space companies.

Looking across the system as a whole, where do you see the greatest vulnerabilities in commercial communications satellites: in manufacturing and supply chains, orbital architecture, ground segments, or data links? To what extent do those same vulnerabilities apply to adversary satellite constellations?

It’s a difficult question to answer because attribution in space is extremely hard. What I mean by this is that if a satellite fails, it isn’t always obvious why. Perhaps it was interference or a technical fault — it could be space weather or a collision with a piece of debris. That has real strategic consequences. What if you think one of your satellites might have been attacked, but can’t prove it? Do you retaliate? Can you justify escalation when you’re not sure what happened? There are twin risks: overreacting and failing to react. For as long as there’s ambiguity, there’s also a lower barrier to hostile action.

Were space not to matter as much as it does, this would be less of a problem. But space systems are absolutely central to military operations and national defense. Weakening them can have profound effects. Those working in government need to be clear-eyed about these challenges and think about how to approach them. Under conditions of uncertainty, they must consider likely scenarios, thresholds, and responses.

As a French company expanding operations into the United States, what regulatory, cultural, or market barriers proved most challenging? Were there obstacles you underestimated before establishing a U.S. presence?

A number of the big satellite service contracts with the U.S. government, the Department of Defense, and Special Operations are with global companies, and that’s been true for decades. Department of Defense data is routed through the satellites and ground infrastructure provided by these companies. As a hardware provider of ground infrastructure, Cailabs US Inc, our wholly owned U.S. subsidiary, follows this established model by delivering data from our Optical Ground Stations into customer-specified modems and downstream systems.

We provide reliable, resilient equipment, but we don’t process customer data. The recent Department of Defense acquisition reforms (especially the drive to buy commercial off-the-shelf technology and work with non-traditional contractors) should make it easier for us to deliver our capabilities to the U.S. government.

The main obstacle is cultural. Some parts of the government still prefer the old model, which involves paying a traditional defense contractor to build or rebuild systems under cost-plus contracts. We see that approach losing ground. Buying proven, off-the-shelf capability at a fixed price simply offers better value. It allows the government to draw on allied investment and get what they need to the people who need it faster and at a predictable cost.

Do you worry that ambiguity around attribution in space operations lowers the barrier to action and increases the risk of miscalculation compared to more traditional military domains?

Absolutely. As I mentioned when we spoke about vulnerabilities, the inability to know exactly why a satellite failed makes responding appropriately very difficult. The last thing that you want to do is hit back at a hostile power when that power might have had nothing to do with your failed satellite. And those hostile powers will know this. The less certainty there is, the lower the barrier to hostile action, and the greater the risk of responding inappropriately.

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Image: M. Lewinsky via Wikimedia Commons.