APOGEE STAFF
Starting with Australia in 2013, the Pentagon has signed deals with more than 30 nations to share information about what’s up there circling the Earth. These space situational awareness (SSA) agreements, written in the carefully crafted legal language of “whereas” and “therefore,” typically address space launches, avoiding collisions, and objects dropping out of orbit. But the enduring value of an SSA agreement may lie more in the handshake than in the specific provisions of the nine-page document.
Space defense leaders have described these bilateral deals as a gateway to a deeper space security relationship with the United States, acknowledged by all as the world leader in space. What each new partner brings to the table varies widely. A handful field their own space defense forces and work hand in glove with the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD). The vast majority of SSA partners, on the other hand, are seen as aspirational. “You’re showing what you have and letting us know where it is, or you’re getting ready to launch,” said Glen Grady, SSA data sharing program manager with U.S. Space Command (USSPACECOM). “That’s an indicator to us that someone is getting serious about space.”
Six nations work most closely with the U.S. on space security, sharing data 24/7 through their Combined Space Operation Centers (CSpO). They are Australia, Canada, France, Germany, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. One indication of how these relationships have matured: A British Army brigadier is assigned to USSPACECOM as deputy director for policy and strategic partnerships under the U.S. chain of command. The CSpO partners have demonstrated some of the highest levels of technological advancement among the nations with whom the U.S. has reached SSA agreements, along with other European nations, Japan, and most recently, India. Cooperating with them to expand awareness in space, as Russia and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) work to gain superiority there, ranks as a top priority for U.S. space defense leaders. And so does growing the community of nations that may not be high-end space operators, but that see the value of getting a seat at the table. In other words, the pursuit of what one security specialist sees as soft power.
USSPACECOM and the service branch U.S. Space Force “have been doing a remarkable job moving forward with this,” said Alfred Oehlers, a Ph.D. professor with the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Hawaii, a DOD institution focused on regional and global security. Space defense leaders are sending their personnel overseas and broadening outreach to countries that don’t have spacefaring capabilities, Oehlers told Apogee. “Building it down lower is important so that we are inculcating in security forces around the world a broader awareness of the importance of space and the importance of countries to be invested in partaking in the decision-making in space,” Oehlers said. Eventually, the effort may advance beyond hub-and-spoke relations, with the U.S. at the center, and toward a system where many nations are interconnected: “We need to sort of put together a community that empowers itself to move forward, developing its relationships.” One step in this process, he said, should be raising a question: Do you believe in a free and open space? Oehlers said he is stunned during his visits to some nations to learn how little priority senior defense leaders place on space defense, in particular the protection of satellites for national security and the vital role they play in day-to-day life by enabling mobile phones, ATMs, weather forecasts, even farming. “They don’t see themselves in the space narrative,” he said, still viewing the domain as a sort of “Star Wars” fiction.
“Space is difficult, with a highly technological threshold. The fact that we’re still looking at a limited number of up-and-coming nations means we probably need to play a far greater role, a much more deliberate and conscious role, in democratizing things a little bit more — offering modalities, opportunities, cooperative agreements, so we give these nations a greater stake going forward.” In the end, Oehlers said, involving more nations in space governance before international forums such as the United Nations promises to serve as a deterrent to go-it-alone authoritarian regimes such as Russia, the PRC and Iran. “They’re trying to turn space into a far more exclusive prerogative that they could exercise sovereignty over. We just can’t let that happen,” he said. In the coming years, he’d like to see the U.S. double the number of SSA agreements it has reached with other nations, now at more than 30, and to build upon them. USSPACECOM puts the total number of nations with some presence in space at 84. “SSA is a great start,” Oehlers said. “But SSA to what end? SSA to preserve the safety, security and stability of space.”
Australia serves as an example of how nations can leverage an SSA agreement to strengthen security, in part by developing a national space industry. With help from the U.S. and the U.K., Australia became the third nation to build and launch its own satellite into space in 1967. But it was five decades later that the SSA agreement helped stimulate awareness among military leaders and across the nation about the importance of space defense, said Russell Boyce, chair for Intelligent Space Systems and director of the University of New South Wales (UNSW) Canberra Space. The university supports the Australian Defence Force Academy, which develops and flies satellite missions for the nation’s Defence Space Command. Since the signing of the 2013 SSA agreement, two powerful U.S. space defense installations have been turned over to Australia and placed at Exmouth on the northwestern coast — the C-Band Space Surveillance Radar System and the Space Surveillance Telescope. The agreement with the U.S. also produced a series of space defense communiques, leading to a deeper understanding of space situational awareness among Australian defense leaders “that there must be more to it than just supplying concrete for U.S. sensors to be located on,” Boyce told Apogee. “That led to support for groups like mine and others to be improving the science and technology of space situational awareness, space domain awareness, space traffic management.”
Australia has plans to spend about $4.5 billion on space defense over the next decade and is working with foreign contractors such as Lockheed Martin Corp. and Airbus to develop the nation’s space capabilities. UNSW Canberra Space has signed an agreement with U.S.-based Lockheed Martin to bring in the company’s space training modules at no cost to the university. “They see a future where inevitably they will win large space-related contracts in Australia,” Boyce said. “They understand they need to be working with a space-literate customer, and part of their responsibility is to help educate that customer.” Australia will seek other space agreements, too — “international partnerships that are not just seeking to parachute into Australia with a sales catalog,” he said. “The right partnerships and the right partners are those who are willing to join us in efforts in Australia that lead to true growth in skills and capability inside Australia. That brings us to maturity.”
A promising commercial space industry is emerging in Australia, he said, including two companies spun off from UNSW Canberra Space — Infinity Avionics, makers of space sensors and processors, and Skykraft, satellite constellation specialists. Boyce still considers Australia’s space capability to be “rather embryonic,” but USSPACECOM has enough faith in its partner that Australia became the third nation — after Canada and the U.K. — to enter into an enhanced space cooperation agreement with the U.S. “Australia has rapidly increased their capabilities. We are, on so many levels, interoperable with them,” said Grady, lead action officer for negotiating the agreement. Boyce explained that Australia’s size makes it agile and able to take risks with projects such as the acclaimed M family of cubesats. The M2 cubesat can split into separate M2-A and M2-B spacecraft and fly in formation, communicating with one other as well as ground stations to provide better quality data with greater detail and less lag time. “We were able to try out some things that were quite wild in their ambition and innovation and we’ve been successful in almost all of them,” he said. Australia also is helping write the international manual on warfighting in the space domain, to stand on the bookshelf beside manuals for land, sea and air. What’s more, with its location in the Southern Hemisphere, Australia can help plug gaps in space surveillance for its partners while at the same time advancing its own capabilities — for example, by developing synthetic aperture radar (SAR) to see through clouds. “If we just relied on international partners,” Oehlers said, “their systems tend to be active over the northern parts of the world and the duty cycle is such that they’re regenerating power while flying over our part of the world and we don’t get a look-in.”
In April 2022, Sweden signed an SSA agreement, representing the first step toward what USSPACECOM calls a “security cooperation framework.” Following this step, Sweden was invited to attend the annual Operation Global Sentinel capstone event at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California — first as an observer, possibly as a participant in the future. The eight-day event in July and August 2022 drew 150 participants from 25 nations, demonstrating their space security capabilities and using their own equipment when possible as they worked through scenarios in regional teams, Grady said. Next, new SSA partners may receive a familiarization tour of Vandenberg and Schriever Space Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Then comes a visit from U.S. personnel for an in-country space assessment: “Let’s lay down what you’ve got and what you’re trying to do with your space program,” Grady said. The answer may lead to further education, training, help in setting up space sensors or military sales — and, always, greater coalition building. Most of the current SSA nations are in Europe and the Indo-Pacific region, though the U.S. is looking to form a security cooperation framework with more nations in South America and in Africa, too, Army Gen. James H. Dickinson, then USSPACECOM commander, said during a March 2022 forum hosted by the Atlantic Council, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. USSPACECOM executes more advanced bilateral deals as well, including those allowing the sharing of classified information, and “terms of reference” agreements setting conditions for military-to-military talks.
SSA data-sharing agreements also extend to private companies, 135 of them so far from countries around the world, and to seven universities. Space partners fall into three general categories: owner-operator, or those with a satellite in orbit; service providers, who operate from others’ satellites; and launch services.
“We want to build a ‘big tent’ coalition,” Grady said. “If we’re not talking to some of these countries, others will and we’d just as soon they follow a U.S. model. Not only because we can talk a lot easier, but because we can start sharing data and work more closely together right now.” As an example of where the partnership progression can lead, Boyce cited ongoing, weeklong wargaming workshops in which the Space Force responds to a security conflict. The service must hand off its non-warfighting duties — the “grunt work” of collision avoidance, risk analysis and maintaining a catalog of some 48,000 objects in space — so a host of trusted space partners is called upon to take them over. The M2 cubesat from UNSW Canberra Space has been activated during these simulations. “We’re doing it as a not-for-profit research organization,” Boyce said. “There are for-profit commercial organizations, and then there are military people sitting in the room. And the folks at U.S. Space Force are just sitting back, cheering, ‘Check that out, that was cool!’”
Increasing opportunities to access space is another benefit of the SSA agreements, recently demonstrated through a DOD-Norway piggyback launch deal that’s expected to save the DOD three years and more than $900 million. Space Norway, owned by the Norwegian Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries, agreed to add two U.S. military payloads to a forthcoming Arctic broadband mission launch. The military payloads will enable 24/7 protected satellite communications for U.S. forces operating in the Arctic, Space Force’s Space Systems Command said in an October 2021 news release. The launch is scheduled for 2024 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. It will be the first U.S. national security space payload hosted on an allied spacecraft, according to the news release. Similarly, Japan is scheduled to launch space surveillance payloads for the Space Force during the next two years as part of Japan’s Quasi-Zenith Satellite System, a constellation that will improve GPS signals over the region. The Space Force payloads, designed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will track satellites and debris in geosynchronous orbit, about 36,000 kilometers above the Earth.
Combined operations like these show other nations the value of space partnerships and help draw an important distinction between the U.S. and its adversaries, said Oehlers, with the Asia-Pacific center. “When they say they will do a partnership, they really mean it,” Oehlers said, imagining the reaction from a nation considering an SSA agreement. “Look at what they’re doing with Norway. We can be Norway!” Meantime, traditional space power Russia has turned itself into an international pariah with the war on Ukraine and relies increasingly upon support from the PRC. The PRC is progressing in space defense at a faster clip than any nation, the Defense Intelligence Agency concluded in an April 2022 report, seeking to achieve space superiority by 2049. But its progress is on the technological side, Oehlers said, with other nations involved chiefly as end users of its products. An effort to establish a PRC-led regional space coalition, the Asia Pacific Space Cooperation Organization, has been superseded in many respects by a more active coalition led by Japan — the Asia-Pacific Regional Space Agency Forum. “So far, in the actual area of space capability, capacity for launch, contributions to the supply chain, exploration — zero international involvement,” Oehlers said. “Because the PRC wants to move fast. Well, if you want to move fast, invariably, you move alone.”
Russia and the PRC enjoy support on space-related matters from some members of the U.N. because they hand out aid through programs like the PRC’s often-usurious One Belt, One Road initiative. But they have consistently resisted broad-based moves before the U.N. toward international norms in space behavior, data sharing, and a ban on anti-satellite weapons. They raised objections again in early 2023 at a meeting of the U.N. Open Ended Working Group on Reducing Space Threats, the news website Breaking Defense reported. This approach is costing Russia and the PRC allies, Oehlers said. “They have been almost relegated to a spoiler category where they’re constantly sniping and griping and undermining the efforts of the U.N.,” he said. “Other nations are beginning to say, ‘Hey, you know what, we have one side talking about open, transparent space regimes that give my country the opportunity to get involved with the space supply chain while you have other countries talking about very closed systems, very exclusive agreements, very, very worrying bilateral arrangements where my country is essentially going to be put into hock.’”
Pushing back against PRC aggression in the Indo-Pacific region helps motivate Australia’s investment in space defense, said Boyce of UNSW Canberra Space. In December 2022, the top diplomats and defense leaders from Australia and the U.S. reiterated their opposition to destabilizing actions by the PRC in the South China Sea, such as the militarization of disputed features, dangerous sea and air encounters, and excessive maritime claims inconsistent with international law. “Space is a global commons,” Boyce said. “It will be so easy to screw that global commons up if we’re not careful. The more nations involved in (ensuring) clarity and transparency, and therefore accountability, the less likely it would be that someone would pull the trigger in a less advised way.” Deterring aggression, then, is seen as a key reason for developing space defense partnerships. In a September 2020 report from the Center for Space and Policy Strategy titled “Defense Partnerships, A Strategic Priority,” the authors wrote, “An attack on a satellite constellation with a mix of U.S. and partner capabilities might prompt a response from several countries acting collectively, which may help deter a potential adversary from attacking in the first place.” The center is part of the nonprofit research and analysis organization The Aerospace Corp. Expanding relationships is also a provision of the latest National Defense Strategy, issued by Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in October 2022: “Mutually-beneficial Alliances and partnerships are our greatest global strategic advantage — and they are a center of gravity for this strategy.”
The space supply chain presents one opportunity to build and strengthen an international coalition of like-minded security partners invested in space, Oehlers said. The expense and know-how required in space defense makes it seem out of reach for many smaller nations, he said, but breaking it down into parts can make it approachable. He told the story of a Thai general who noted that silk is used in making the “cool-looking” space suits worn by astronauts on rockets flown by U.S.-based SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk. “He pointed out that Thailand has a wonderful silk industry. I told him, ‘Sir, get on the phone with Elon,’” Oehlers recalled. The next big advance in space exploration is an unprecedented example of cooperation: Eleven countries in Europe — including Denmark, Switzerland and Austria — are contributing to the service module for the Orion spacecraft to take crews to the moon and beyond through the international Artemis program. The service module has been described as Orion’s spine, like the chassis of a car. When nations have a toehold in the space supply chain, Oehlers said, “you have a stake … and the stronger this whole thing is going to be as we go forward.” Constant examination and reexamination of the supply chain is a function of commercial space, on which space defense leaders plan to rely more in the future. “We don’t even have to work too hard at this,” Oehlers said. “Commercial space will find the right sort of players to plug into the supply chain. We only need to encourage this.” Then, he suggested, produce a map, pinpointing all the nations that contribute to a coalition space project and place it side-by-side with a map showing the few, if any, who help supply a project developed by Russia and the PRC. “And so, all right,” Oehlers said, “who’s winning now?”