“They can disrupt satellite operations, blind satellites, manipulate or kinetically destroy them.”<\/p>\n
He said Germany<\/a>‘s military had already been targeted by jamming attacks.<\/p>\n Intelsat is as US-Luxembourg firm operating more than 50 satellites used by private companies as well as government agencies.<\/p>\n The two Russian satellites in question – launched in 2014 and 2023 – have long been accused of “loitering” and “eavesdropping” on others by stopping nearby.<\/p>\n French space start-up Aldoria said it observed one Russian satellite performing a “sudden close approach” to another one in May 2024.<\/p>\n The year before, US firm Slingshot Aerospace reported “unfriendly” behaviour – with one of the satellites showing a pattern in which it was stopping near non-Russian satellites.<\/p>\n Geostationary satellites rarely move and usually spend years in the same position.<\/p>\n The warning comes amid speculation Russia might be behind drones that have disrupted several airports<\/a> in Denmark this week.<\/p>\n It also follows NATO jets being scrambled last week when Russian jets violated Estonian airspace<\/a>.<\/p>\n 1:31<\/p>\n Is Russia trying to expose NATO’s defences?<\/p>\n Military analyst Sean Bell said the closest stop observed by one of the Russian satellites was about 10km (6 miles) – very close in space<\/a> terms, especially as they’re moving at around 3km a second.<\/p>\n “Every now again it moves closer to one, then closer to another – almost testing, finding out how close it can get,” he told Sky News.<\/p>\n “It does sound a bit like Moonraker and it’s definitely a threat to our military comms, and potentially space-based capabilities,” he added.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Bell said operating near another satellite can give a hostile nation the chance to jam communications or manipulate it.<\/p>\n “Most nations realise they’ve not spent enough on space,” he told Sky News. “So by highlighting this it secures more funding to try to do more about it.”<\/p>\n Read more from Sky News: The German defence minister used Thursday’s conference to unveil a \u20ac35bn (\u00a330bn) investment in the country’s space programmes over the next five years.<\/p>\n Mr Pistorius said it was important to hold talks on developing offensive capabilities in space as a deterrent to hostile actions.<\/p>\n As he was speaking, he told delegates: “39 Chinese and Russian reconnaissance satellites are flying over us… so be careful what you say”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Germany’s defence minister has warned his country’s satellites are being shadowed by Russian satellites. Boris Pistorius cited concerns…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168401,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[64,63,128,285],"class_list":{"0":"post-168400","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-space"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/skynews-denmark-drone_7030952.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Jaguar Land Rover ‘not insured for cyber attack’<\/a>
More than \u00a33.5m worth of counterfeit toys seized at UK border <\/a><\/p>\n