Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Pentagon using China satellite for US-Africa Command




Tuesday Apr 30, 2013

Pentagon using China satellite for US-Africa Command



A U.S. lawmaker is questioning the Pentagon’s decision to use a Chinese commercial satellite to provide communications for its Africa Command.

Use of China’s Apstar-7 satellite was leased because it provided “unique bandwidth and geographic requirements” for “wider geographic coverage” requested in May 2012 by the U.S. Africa Command, according to Lieutenant Colonel Monica Matoush, a Pentagon spokeswoman.

Apstar-7 is operated by APT Satellite Holdings Ltd. (1045) The state-owned China Aerospace Science & Technology Corp. holds 61 percent of Hong Kong-based APT, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The Pentagon contract was disclosed without details at an April 25 House Armed Services Committee hearing during questioning from Representative Mike Rogers of Alabama, chairman of the panel that oversees space programs.

The contract “exposes our military to the risk that China may seek to turn off our ’eyes and ears’ at the time of their choosing,” Rogers, a Republican, said yesterday in an e-mailed statement. “It sends a terrible message to our industrial base at a time when it is under extreme stress” from the automatic budget cuts known as sequestration.

The Defense Information Systems Agency and the Africa Command “made an informed risk assessment of operational security considerations and implemented appropriate transmission and communications security and information assurance measures,” Matoush, of the Pentagon, said in an e-mailed statement. She said the security of “all signals to and through the Apstar-7 satellite are fully protected with additional transmission security.”
U.S. Company

The satellite’s services were leased under a one-year, $10.6 million contract through a U.S. company, Artel LLC, Matoush said. Reston, Virginia-based Artel is one of 18 companies under an established contract the Defense Information Systems Agency uses for specialized commercial satellite services.


While the Apstar-7 lease expires May 14, the agency has the option to extend it for as long as three more years.

Rogers said he was “deeply concerned a low-level DoD agency was able to enter into a contract with a Chinese company to use a Chinese satellite launched by a Chinese missile, seemingly with no input from the political appointees in DoD.”

Representative John Garamendi, a California Democrat, said the Chinese satellite lease confirms his suspicion that there’s a lack of coordination among the Pentagon offices that oversee intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems, his spokesman, Matthew Kravitz, said yesterday in an e-mailed statement. Bloomberg
HIGHLIGHTS
Over the last several years, the U.S. government has publicly and loudly expressed its concern that too much sensitive American data passes through Chinese electronics — and that those electronics could be sieves for Beijing’s intelligence services. But the Pentagon says it has no other choice than to use the Chinese satellite. Wired

Douglas Loverro, the Pentagon’s top space policy official, told the House panel last week that the Apstar-7 lease was the only one available to support an urgent “operational need, but we also recognize that we need to have a good process in place to assure this” type of decision “is vetted across the department.” “We recognize that there is concern across the community on the usage of Chinese satellites to support our warfighter, and yet” officials recognize commanders “need support and sometimes we must go” to “the only place that we can get” the service, he said. Bloomberg


The Apstar-7 is owned and operated by a subsidiary of the state-controlled China Satellite Communication Company, which counts the son of former Chinese premier Wen Jiabao as its chairman. But the Pentagon insists that any data passed through the Apstar-7 is protected from any potential eavesdropping by Beijing. Wired

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission said in its 2012 annual report said China is “the most threatening actor in cyberspace” as its intelligence agencies and hackers use increasingly sophisticated techniques to gain access to U.S. military computers and defense contractors. Bloomberg

Chinese hackers are moving into “increasingly advanced types of operations or operations against specialized targets,” such as sensors and apertures on deployed U.S. military platforms, according to the report. Bloomberg

Chinese officials have denied responsibility for cyberattacks and said their country is often the victim of such intrusions. Bloomberg

According to a 2008 Intelligence Science Board study — one of the few public reports on the subject — demand for satellite communications could grow from about 30 gigabits per second to 80 gigabits a decade from now. Wired

The Chinese are poised to help fill that need — especially over Africa, where Beijing has deep business and strategic interests. In 2012, China for the first time launched more rockets into space than the U.S. – including the Chinasat 12 and Apstar-7 communications satellites. Wired


ARA/HJ

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