The European nations in NATO have observed firsthand the value of commercial space in national security: Commercial operators exposed Russian troop movements leading up to the invasion of Ukraine and they enabled Ukraine to maintain command and control in the face of Russian cyberattacks.
Now, defense ministers have adopted the first NATO Commercial Space Strategy to integrate commercial solutions quicker and more flexibly and to ensure access to commercial assets in peacetime, crisis and conflict, NATO said at its website.
The decision came at a June 2025 defense ministers meeting in Brussels after a year of consultation with some 300 industry representatives. The number shows the rapid growth of the commercial space industry across NATO’s territory in Europe and North America.
“While space was once the exclusive domain of nation-states, governments today increasingly rely on commercially owned and operated capabilities — from launch services to entire satellite constellations — to access and operate in space,” said Corey Jacobson, a co-author of the U.S. Department of Defense’s commercial space strategy, in a July 2025 essay for the Atlantic Council on the new NATO strategy.
The strategy aims to create more business opportunities and cut red tape in the 32-member alliance’s procurement processes, simplifying how space companies engage with NATO, helping increase commercial diversity and strengthening partnerships, NATO said.