Robert Wall
Western armed forces are refining their thinking on space and trying to hone their situational awareness in that domain, spurred by elevated threat perceptions and the recognition of how vital such systems are.
NATO, for instance, has begun work on a space doctrine to focus more on an area that so far has been treated as just one part of the Allied Joint Doctrine for Air and Space Operations. The new doctrine is expected to be ready in 2025 and give the Alliance more focus on space.
Orbital unease
Russia’s full-scale attack on Ukraine has highlighted how much space systems can be in the crosshairs of an adversary. British and United States intelligence officials said Russia was behind a cyber attack on commercial communications satellite provider Viasat as the 2022 invasion unfolded. SpaceX last year also said that it had to adapt its Starlink space-based internet service, which is being used in Ukraine, in the face of Russian electronic attacks. During the Ukraine war, Russia has also reportedly jammed Global Positioning System signals and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) spacecraft.
Western defence planners are concerned over increasing efforts by China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to use space for military purposes. Beijing has boosted investment in space systems and demonstrated interest in counterspace technology, at least as far back as a 2005 test of an anti-satellite system. The PLA ‘is developing, testing, and fielding capabilities intended to target US and allied satellites’, the Pentagon noted in a September report on space policy. The document said that these capabilities included ‘electronic warfare to suppress or deceive enemy equipment, ground-based laser systems that can disrupt, degrade, and damage satellite sensors, offensive cyberwarfare capabilities, and direct-ascent anti-satellite (DA-ASAT) missiles that can target satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO)’. The Pentagon report said that China has also deployed several experimental satellites that could be used to grapple other spacecraft. Similarly, the Pentagon’s latest annual report on Chinese military capabilities stated that Beijing ‘has an operational ground-based anti-satellite (ASAT) missile intended to target low-Earth orbit satellites, and China probably intends to pursue additional ASAT weapons capable of destroying satellites up to geosynchronous Earth orbit’.
The assistant head for strategy and operations in the British Ministry of Defence echoed the US sentiment. ‘The threats are very real. The threats are today, and they affect the entire space ecosystem,’ Group Captain Dave Keighley said on 12 December at an annual Air & Space Power Association event in London.
Threat awareness
The proliferation of threats is driving Western countries to look for a greater ability to monitor that domain. They are not just looking to do more, but also act in a more coordinated manner.
Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States this month said they would cooperatively work on a Deep Space Advanced Radar Capability to detect, track and characterise objects in geosynchronous orbit or even further out. The all-weather capable sensors that underpin this capability are expected to be installed in each of the three countries, with the one in Australia to be operational in 2026 and the others online before the end of the decade. ‘As the world becomes more contested and the danger of space warfare increases, the UK and our allies must ensure we have the advanced capabilities we need to keep our nations safe’, British Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said.
Also this month, the Combined Space Operational Initiative Principals Board met in Berlin for its annual gathering, welcoming Italy, Japan and Norway as new members. The grouping that was established in 2014 between Australia, Canada, the UK and the US to improve cooperation and coordination for operations in space had already expanded to include France, Germany and New Zealand.
In addition, NATO is working on a Strategic Space Situational Awareness System to better track what is going on in space. ‘This capability will allow the Alliance to better understand the space environment and space events, and their effects across all domains,’ NATO said.
Meanwhile, the UK in November said it had awarded a contract to British space startup Spaceflux for a telescope to be based in Cyprus to monitor objects in geostationary orbit under Project Nyx Alpha. Data from the satellite should be able to be shared with allies. The system’s primary focus is helping protect the UK’s Skynet military satellite communication system, Air Vice-Marshal Paul Godfrey, Commander of UK Space Command, said during the Defence Space Conference 2023.
More eyes
The pace of change to add space-surveillance capabilities is broadly matched by that to add space-based geospatial imaging capabilities. In February, NATO plans to set up the Alliance Persistent Surveillance from Space initiative. The goal of that effort is to establish a virtual constellation of commercial or government-owned satellites called Aquila to feed NATO’s intelligence systems.
The UK’s effort to boost its space-based satellite imagery capacity after heavily leaning on the US for decades is another example of greater investment in space systems. London aims to launch the Tyche electro-optical (EO) imaging demonstration satellite next year. The UK will also award a contract in 2024 for Oberon, a SAR constellation that would launch in 2025, followed by another EO system, Juno, in 2026.
The US, for its part, is wrestling with how to create a hybrid space architecture that mixes commercial and government systems while providing information that can be shared. The key issue to be addressed in this endeavour is the need to ‘preserve operational and informational security while enabling collaboration between services, allies and other strategic partners’, the Defense Innovation Unit said.
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