The proposed merger between European satellite service provider SES, a major Pentagon space contractor, and Virginia-based Intelsat is raising national security concerns over SES’ strategic partnership with a Chinese state-linked satellite company, according to national security experts.

The $3.1 billion merger announced in April was followed a month later by SES reaching a strategic partnership with China’s AeroSat Link for an international airline inflight internet service program.

AeroSat Link is a subsidiary of state-run China Satellite Communications Co. Ltd., known as ChinaSat, that is part of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. (CASC).

Both ChinaSat and CASC are identified as Chinese military companies, and both were sanctioned by the Treasury Department in the past based on national security concerns.

Luxembourg-based SES operates a network of nearly 70 satellites in two different orbits, along with ground infrastructure that provides video and data services to 99% of the world’s population, according to the company website.

Intelsat, with a fleet of 52 satellites, boasts on its website that its satellite networks provide television and radio content to 500 million people worldwide.

Michael J. Listner, founder of Space Law and Policy Solutions, said the SES-Intelsat merger raises national security concerns and antitrust issues.

“Allowing SES, with its partnerships with the [People’s Republic of China], opens potential security exposure to the PRC, especially with a government-owned entity having a strategic partnership with SES,” Mr. Listner said. “This creates a potential vulnerability to access secure military communications as well as the means to interfere with or disrupt those communications.”

In May, the same month SES announced its partnership with the Chinese company, SES Space and Defense said it was hired by the Pentagon to produce a multi-orbit satellite network called Secure Integrated Multi-Orbit Networking, or SIMON.

Rick Fisher, a China affairs analyst with the International Assessment and Strategy Center, said SES’ purchase of Intelsat, which is a crucial provider of satellite communications services to U.S. military and intelligence services, could open satellite communications to attack by both China and Russia.

“Like U.S. inflight connectivity service provider Viacom, which has been a major target for Chinese cyber espionage — a victim of the Chinese Salt Typhoon advanced persistent threat attack — SES will be a major target for Chinese cyberwarfare-espionage due to acquisition of Intelsat and its SIMON network business with the Pentagon,” Mr. Fisher said.

SES spokeswoman Suzanne Ong said the company’s relationship with AeroSat Link under its SES Open Orbits program does not pose a security threat.

The SES/Intelsat deal “has been cleared by U.S. national security agencies following two detailed national security reviews, where the SES Open Orbits arrangement was disclosed,” including a Pentagon, Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice national security review, Ms. Ong said.

Ms. Ong said Open Orbits is a “roaming” agreement that allows airlines to access the internet through SES satellites.

“It’s the same kind of arrangement that telcos like Verizon and AT&T have with mobile operators in China, such as China Mobile or China Telecom, which are also state-owned entities,” she said.

’Potential vectors for espionage’

Critics say such satellite service requires providing sensitive information on how satellites operate and communicate — data that could be used by adversaries such as China to conduct nefarious operations.

Experts on satellite communications say SES’ collaboration with AeroSat Link could lead to China’s military conducting signal interception and communications traffic monitoring of U.S. satellites.

The Chinese also could conduct cyber infiltration and denial-of-service attacks in a crisis or conflict.

China’s intelligence services also could conduct spoofing, jamming or kinetic interference by its orbital platforms.

L.J. Eads, director of research and intelligence at Parallax Advanced Research Corp., said SES’ links to AeroSat Link pose substantial national security risks, especially because of SES’ deep integration in Pentagon satellite communications infrastructure.

AeroSat Link’s parent company, CASC, is “a core pillar of the People’s Liberation Army’s space and missile operations and operates under China’s military-civil fusion doctrine,” said Mr. Eads, a former Air Force intelligence officer.

“The Open Orbit partnership between SES and AeroSat Link introduces potential vectors for espionage, signal manipulation or cyber infiltration, and is especially dangerous given SES’ deployment of the Secured Integrated Multi-Orbit Network (SIMON) — an architecture that interlinks commercial and military satellite services through [geostationary Earth orbit], medium Earth orbit, and [low Earth orbit],” he said.

The SIMON architecture is not immune to attack because integrating commercial and government satellite networks across multiple orbits onto the same operational backbone inherently increases the attack surface, he said.

“Vulnerabilities in one segment especially if linked, even indirectly, to adversary-controlled infrastructure can enable lateral access, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, or covert traffic monitoring, undermining the assurance of secure, uninterrupted communications promised to warfighters,” Mr. Eads said.

Mr. Eads said the satellite vulnerability in the SIMON program would be similar to allowing the Pentagon’s top-secret Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System to share a backbone layer with a PLA-linked system.

Even without direct access, close proximity on the same physical or software-defined network creates the potential for lateral movement, metadata leakage, traffic net flow, users metadata, potentially unencrypted traffic metadata and denial-of-service vulnerabilities, he said.

Also, satellites operating in multiple orbits face a potential security danger. A single compromise of a commercial satellite could lead to an adversary-linked cascade breach across orbital regimes and expose critical U.S. communications to surveillance or disruption, Mr. Eads said.

If SIMON is widely adopted and network pathways are even marginally connected to CASC-controlled infrastructure through Open Orbits, it would jeopardize the confidentiality, integrity and availability of U.S. military communications, Mr. Eads said.

“The potential for technology leakage, network mapping, and adversarial surveillance is heightened given the shared architecture and complex orbital interconnectivity proposed by SES,” he said.

Biden-era approval

Mr. Eads said the entanglement of SES and China should prompt the U.S. government to block the Intelsat deal unless SES severs all links to Chinese state-owned entities. Also, communications security officials should scrutinize SIMON’s architecture for any foreign access risks.

Mr. Fisher, another China expert, said SES is “basically forced to accept a major risk by having to partner with Chinese company AeroSat Link to provide inflight communication services over China.”

“As AeroSat Link is a subsidiary of the state-owned China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), it is required by Chinese state law to follow orders of the Chinese Communist Party that very likely include serving as a cyberwarfare/espionage platform for military and intelligence organs,” he said.

Mr. Fisher urged U.S. and European regulators to find ways for SES to protect its military-intelligence satellite communication services from Chinese and Russian cyberattacks.

“It is interesting that in 2022 ViaSat sold its Tactical Data Link line, that included critical products like the Link 16, a secure, jam-resistant tactical data link used by the military, to L3 Harris, perhaps an example for U.S. and European regulators to consider to better protect SES’s critical military-intelligence satellite services from Chinese and Russian cyber predations,” Mr. Fisher said.

SES spokeswoman Ms. Ong said neither SES nor AeroSat Link would have access to their satellite networks under the Open Orbits arrangement.

“This arrangement poses no cybersecurity or other threat to the Secured Integrated Multi-Orbit Network that SES is working on with the Pentagon, which will operate on a separate, encrypted network,” she said.

SES Chief Executive Officer Adel Al-Saleh, said in November that the Biden administration’s Treasury-led Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. approved the merger with Intelsat and that other regulatory agencies cleared the transaction.

“There’s still some way to go, but the major long-lead clearances are proceeding to our initial expectations,” Mr. Al-Saleh said, according to a transcript of a call with company investors.

A spokesman for Intelsat referred questions about the merger to SES.

A Treasury spokesman declined to comment.

A Pentagon spokesman had no immediate comment.

The Federal Communications Commission, which reviewed the sale, and the Justice Department did not respond to requests for comment.

Team Telecom

Ms. Ong said the Trump administration’s “Team Telecom” made up of security officials from the Pentagon, Homeland Security and the Justice Department, cleared the SES/Intelsat merger.

The Team Telecom national security agreement that resulted from the review was submitted to the FCC.

The agreement recognizes security dangers in stating that the president has determined that foreign adversaries are increasingly targeting vulnerabilities in information and communications technology and services that carry vast amounts of sensitive information and support critical infrastructure.

The agreement sets up a compliance monitoring authority to oversee the activities of the new company and contains several references to foreign adversaries — an indicator that there are national security worries with the satellite company merger.

Under the agreement, any security incident must be reported to U.S. authorities within 72 hours.

Also, under the national security agreement, the merged SES/Intelsat company must provide notice to government officials if the service provider is “owned or controlled by, or subject to the jurisdiction or direction of, a U.S. Foreign Adversary or a Foreign Country of Concern.”

Foreign adversaries were defined in a 2021 law as China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia and Venezuela.

If the national security agreement is violated, Team Telecom could recommend that the FCC revoke or terminate the merger agreement. However, the agreement provides no details on how the merger would be undone.

SES’ Ms. Ong said that for the last 12 months a substantial level of scrutiny by government security agencies was undertaken, including detailed questions on equipment, customers, personnel, other service providers and cybersecurity practices.

The reviews culminated in the detailed agreement about cybersecurity and national security practices and compliance, she said.

Roger W. Robinson, senior director of international economic affairs at the National Security Council during the Reagan administration, said SES’ partnership with Intelsat is troubling. The recent national security agreement signed to mitigate the China-related risks involved did not adequately allay security concerns, he said.

“The fact is that the PLA will have slipped under the tent and be inside, notwithstanding the firewalls,” Mr. Robinson said.

Retired Navy Capt. Jim Fanell, a former Pacific Fleet intelligence director, said the fact that SES has an agreement with the Chinese Communist Party-controlled China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. subsidiary should disqualify SES from any involvement with the Pentagon, as it is a direct risk to U.S. national security, especially to the most important component of U.S. military operations — satellite communications.

“The success of American military operations, as recently witnessed in the strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, is dependent upon having secure and assured satellite communications,” Capt. Fanell said.

The Biden administration’s CFIUS approval of the merger was a dangerous mistake, one that places American military lives at risk, especially in the context of a future PLA invasion of Taiwan that is designed to target American military forces, he said.

“This deal must be reversed by the Trump administration to ensure America’s fighting forces retain the integrity of their communication systems, to include assured command and control and precise positioning, targeting and navigation,” Capt. Fanell said.

• Bill Gertz can be reached at bgertz@washingtontimes.com.