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At CYSAT Paris 2026, Europe underscored once again that space is a strategic domain central to security, defence, and sovereignty. Against rising geopolitical tensions, experts highlighted the need to secure critical satellite infrastructure, strengthen cyber resilience, and reduce dependence on foreign systems.
The conference explored lessons from Ukraine and Middle East, emerging quantum threats, and Europe's drive toward greater strategic autonomy in space.
Written by Marco Cesario, this in-depth report explores how CYSAT is shaping a new European space security doctrine - one where the defence of orbital infrastructure is inseparable from the defence of the continent itself.
CYSAT 2026, held at Station F on May 20-21, showed how deeply space security has become intertwined with Europe’s defence, cyber resilience and geopolitical strategy.
Against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine, instability in the Middle East and growing competition with China and the United States, the conference made clear that Europe increasingly sees space infrastructure as critical strategic territory.
The tone was set by CYSAT director Alexandra Vaillant, who said the event reflected a world:
“Where space, technology, defence and geopolitics are becoming increasingly intertwined”.
Patrick Trinkler, Co-Founder & CEO at CYSEC & CYSAT, framed the stakes in stark terms.
“Never before has Europe launched as many satellites into space as it does today,”
he wrote in a keynote analysis published during the event.
But he warned that Europe’s growing dependence on space infrastructure is creating vulnerabilities already being exploited by adversaries.
“State actors and cybercriminals are already intercepting and storing encrypted satellite data, with the aim of decrypting it at a later date using quantum computers,”
he said, describing the emerging “Harvest Now, Decrypt Later” threat.
Philippe Rosius, EUSPA Head of Security Operations and Monitoring, highlighted the scale of Europe’s existing capabilities and their importance to sovereignty.
“The EU’s space programme is one of Europe’s greatest collective achievements,”
he said, pointing to Galileo, Copernicus, GovSatcom and the future Iris2 constellation as systems supporting “millions or billions of users every day”.
Galileo alone now serves more than 4.5 billion users globally. His remarks reinforced a recurring message throughout the conference: Europe already possesses world-class assets, but now faces growing pressure to secure and defend them.
That concern was echoed by Antonios Atlasis, ESA Head of Systems Security Engineering Section, who argued that cybersecurity can no longer be treated as secondary or reserved for classified missions.
“Cybersecurity should be applicable, must be applicable for every kind of project mission system, no matter how big or small it is.”
Atlasis stressed the need for “secure by design” approaches, where security is integrated from the beginning of satellite development rather than added later at greater cost and complexity.
“If you introduce security later in the process, then it comes with an additional cost."
Atlasis also pointed to growing industry demand for stronger protections. ESA workshops with manufacturers showed that most companies are already receiving customer requests for enhanced security standards in space systems. He outlined ESA’s efforts to build common “cybersecurity building blocks” and modular security architectures that can be reused across European missions, reducing costs while strengthening resilience.
Ukraine dominated much of the strategic thinking across the conference. Speakers repeatedly described the war as the first large-scale “space-enabled digital war”, where battlefield superiority depends on satellite communications, navigation systems and real-time intelligence.
One of the clearest interventions came from Matteo Merialdo, Nexova Director for Technology & Innovation, who argued that “modern warfare and space systems” are now inseparable. Referring to Ukraine’s rapid integration of UAV, satellite and surveillance data, he said:
“An army without this type of equipment, without this data fusion… is extremely powerful.”
Merialdo described how drones now rely on satellites for positioning, command-and-control, targeting and intelligence gathering. Electronic warfare in Ukraine has rendered large stretches of the frontline unusable for conventional GNSS navigation.
“Across a considerable area of the front line in Ukraine, GNSS services simply don’t work,”
he said, describing a battlefield dominated by jamming and spoofing. The response has been rapid innovation.
Merialdo highlighted the use of fibre-optic-controlled drones, hardened radio systems and increasing onboard autonomy powered by artificial intelligence. But he also warned of the risks created by this acceleration.
“Individual drones are relatively autonomous, and they will get there,” he said of fully autonomous systems. “That… opens up a new vulnerability: the possibility of compromising these AI models.”
The role of Starlink emerged as another recurring theme, illustrating Europe’s dependence on non-European infrastructure during wartime. Merialdo noted that Ukraine’s battlefield awareness deteriorated significantly once SpaceX restricted Russian access to the system, underlining the strategic leverage held by private US providers.
“The problem is that there is still a dependency,” he warned. “If SpaceX were to decide tomorrow to cut off access to the Ukrainians, then it would be the same.”
That dependency fed directly into wider discussions about European sovereignty.
Participants repeatedly argued that Europe cannot speak credibly about strategic autonomy while relying heavily on American satellite infrastructure and cloud ecosystems.
Quantum resilience emerged as another central issue. Patrick Trinkler warned that Europe risks creating long-term vulnerabilities if it fails to secure satellites against future quantum attacks.
Because satellites remain operational for decades, vulnerabilities built into systems today could persist well into the 2030s and beyond.
“Anyone who does not build in quantum resilience from the outset therefore puts the integrity of their systems at risk."
He argued that Europe possesses the technological expertise but lacks political coordination and binding standards. “Technology alone is therefore not enough,” he said.
“Quantum resilience provides protection only if its use is mandatory.”
Ultimately, CYSAT Paris 2026 illustrated a European strategic thinking with space as the backbone of military capability, economic resilience and geopolitical independence.
Author: Marco Cesario, Journalist, Geopolitical Reporter & Early Morning News Correspondent for France
Photo credit: Emmanuel Nguyen Ngoc
Concerns over Europe’s reliance on Starlink and broader US-controlled digital infrastructure reflect a growing strategic anxiety in wartime communications. Yet the picture in Ukraine is more complex than a single point of dependency.
As The Sign, we have previously reported, Ukrainian initiatives such as Narodnyi Starlink have been working to adapt and supplement satellite communications since the early phases of the war, underscoring both the fragility and improvisational resilience of battlefield connectivity (see: “Was Starlink hacked in Ukraine?” interview with Volodymyr Stepanets)
Alongside satellite communications, Ukraine has accelerated efforts to diversify critical electronics sourcing and strengthen resilience in semiconductor-adjacent components, reducing exposure to single points of failure in global supply networks, including those linked to China. The emphasis is less on full substitution than on redundancy and rerouting under conditions of disruption, particularly for defence-relevant systems and communications infrastructure.
Taken together, these developments complicate simplified accounts of technological dependence. Ukraine’s communications architecture is increasingly characterised not by substitution of one dominant provider for another, but by parallel systems, redundancy, and rapid diversification under wartime pressure.
The broader European sovereignty debate therefore extends beyond replacing US infrastructure. It is increasingly about whether Europe can construct a resilient, multi-layered communications ecosystem capable of sustaining connectivity under disruption across both commercial and military domains.
At The Sign, we hope Europe learns from Ukraine in conferences and workshops rather when on the battlefield.
See you at CYSAT Madrid 2026, which we are co-organizing on October 28, 2026, during the Madrid Tech Week.
Tatiana Skydan, Co-Founder & Editor-in-Chief at THE SIGN.MEDIA
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