The United Kingdom’s military is taking steps to protect the nation’s space assets against interference by adversaries such as Russia.
The U.K. and United States space commands conducted their first joint military operation in space in September 2025, moving two satellites close together during a rendezvous and proximity operation in geostationary orbit. For about a week, a U.S. satellite checked whether SKYNET 5A, a U.K. military communications satellite, was operating as intended, according to a report from the Royal Air Force. The operation was conducted under Multinational Force-Operation Olympic Defender, a U.S.-led space coalition that also includes Australia, Canada, France, Germany and New Zealand.
“We are now, with our allies, conducting advanced orbital operations to protect and defend our shared national and military interests in space,” said British Army Maj. Gen. Paul Tedman, commander of U.K. Space Command.
A few weeks later, the U.K. announced that technology is under development to spot lasers that adversaries may use to dazzle satellites and intercept communications. The U.K. Armed Forces project will help protect satellites that are used for everything from bank transfers and weather forecasts to emergency services and intelligence operations, the government said in an October 2025 report.
The new sensor technology will help identify lasers based in space or on the ground and determine whether they pose a threat to satellites, helping the military protect and defend U.K. and allied space systems and assets.
The moves come as the U.K. is sounding the alarm about Russian satellites stalking and seeking to jam the country’s fleet of a half-dozen military satellites. In an October 2025 interview with the BBC, Tedman said for the first time that space interference from Moscow has risen to a weekly occurrence since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
“They’ve got payloads on board that can see our satellites and are trying to collect information from them,” he said. In September 2025, Germany’s Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said Russia had been shadowing satellites used by his country’s military.