Morocco Shifts Satellite Contract from France to Israel, Boosting Defense Ties

Morocco would have decided last summer to entrust the manufacture of its next spy satellite to Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), thus ruling out the French duo Airbus Defence & Space and Thales Alenia Space (TAS) who had designed the Mohammed-VI A satellite, launched in 2017, reports the French newspaper La Tribune. The Moroccan authorities would even have refused to receive the French Directorate General of Armaments (DGA) who wanted to lobby in favor of the offers of the French groups. Thus, IAI will manufacture the Ofek-13, the latest model launched by Israel. It is an observation satellite with a synthetic aperture radar and is equipped with very advanced capabilities. This satellite should replace Mohammed-VI A.

Clearly, Morocco prefers to do without the services of Thales and Airbus. These two French groups had sold it in 2013 two spy satellites for more than 500 million euros. A system composed of two Earth observation and reconnaissance satellites (A and B) of the Pléiades type and the payload, including the optical instrument, the image transmission subsystem and the ground segment for processing and production, had been supplied to Morocco as part of this sale.

Everything suggests that this failure would be linked to the cooling of relations between Rabat and Paris. Morocco in particular expects France to recognize its sovereignty over the Sahara, as countries like the United States, Germany, Spain and Israel have already done. On the French side, the reluctance remains.