Space and Counterspace Technologies: Assessing the Current Threat Environment

The Evolving Notions of ‘Counterspace’ and ‘Counterspace Capabilities’

The role of space and counterspace technologies in future warfare will only grow with time; yet what do these phrases currently mean? ‘Counterspace’ is preferred over ‘space’ because the issue is not just that the technology is space-related but that there is an attempt to interfere with it, which is more disruptive to global stability. Similarly, the term ‘space weapons’ has become outdated as it no longer reflects the current space threat environment. What we have are capabilities, some of which are deployed in space, and some of which are not, which can be used in a dual-purpose way: benign or aggressive, or for defensive or offensive goals. The concern is less the technology and more the intent behind it and how it is used.

The Secure World Foundation issues an annual open-source assessment of counterspace capabilities of 11 countries.[1] We have divided these capabilities into five categories: co-orbital (objects that are placed into orbit and then manoeuvre to approach their target spacecraft to interfere in ways that can be destructive and non-destructive); direct ascent (ground-, air-, and sea-launched missiles that destroy their target spacecraft through kinetic impact); directed energy (systems that use focused energy, such as laser, particle, or microwave beams, to destroy or interfere with space systems); electronic warfare (radiofrequency interference with satellite communications); and cyber (systems that use network and software techniques to interfere with or destroy computer systems relevant to space capabilities). We also track their space situational awareness (SSA) capabilities. While simply having an SSA programme does not necessarily indicate that they will be used in a counterspace manner, if one was interested in those capabilities, having an indigenous SSA programme would be a key part of the effort.

There is a wide variety of research and development being done on a broad spectrum of counterspace capabilities. However, there has not been any use of destructive counterspace capabilities in active military conflicts.[2] We have seen direct-ascent anti-satellite (DA-ASAT) tests held by four countries—chronologically, the United States (US), the erstwhile Soviet Union, China, and India—destroy only their own satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO – 100-2,000 kilometres in altitude) and primarily 1,000 kilometres and below. We have seen three countries—the US, Russia, and China—conduct co-orbital activities at both LEO and geostationary Earth orbit (GEO – roughly 36,000 kilometres in altitude). Space-related directed energy research is thought to be conducted by four countries (the US, Russia, China, and France), although it is expected that others are exploring it. Non-destructive counterspace capabilities like electronic warfare are used almost universally, and while it is difficult to find open-source information about cyber counterspace capabilities, the assumption is that multiple countries likely possess cyber capabilities that could be used against space systems.

A well-known incident of the latter type of capability demonstrates that counterspace capabilities can block the use of space capabilities even when they do not target objects in orbit. In February 2022, right before Russia invaded Ukraine, a cyber-attack was released against ViaSat’s KA-SAT satellite communications service to interfere with Ukrainian military communications. It was effective: The attack took out tens of thousands of end-user modems, affecting users not just in Ukraine but all across Europe.[3] It did not permanently harm the modems, but it did take some time for them to either get back online or be replaced by working versions. While no one ever officially claimed the attack, US and other Western officials announced in May 2022 that Russia was behind it.[4]

This also demonstrates what many wargaming scenarios have indicated: If counterspace capabilities are to be used against an enemy’s capability in an active conflict, they most likely will be of the kind that can be reversed (i.e., not create permanent damage to or destruction of their target) and their target may not necessarily be a spacecraft. Temporary and reversible counterspace capabilities are deemed to be far more usable than kinetic options.

Indeed, it could be said that the military utility of DA-ASATs is dropping. They create debris on orbit that threatens all actors at the altitude of interception and below (and frequently even above; the force of impact often spits debris further out to higher altitudes and thus gives it a much longer lifespan).[5] Debris is apolitical; it does not care if you are an ally or a competitor to the creator of the debris. If you are in the way of the debris, the laws of orbital mechanics are the only things that matter. Additionally, these types of counterspace capabilities are, by and large, not temporary. If the goal is to physically impact and destroy a satellite, that is irreversible and permanent.

Furthermore, there is no plausible deniability about who the responsible party is, like there is with cyber or even electronic warfare counterspace capabilities. There is also no plausible deniability about intent like there is (at least minimally) with co-orbital counterspace technologies. A destructive ASAT test is not even needed to determine the effectiveness of the interceptor, as modelling and simulation can create the same results without cluttering the space environment. This means that using a DA-ASAT would be an extremely inflammatory step that would be hard to de-escalate, and there is great financial cost to the country developing it, channelling resources into a largely unusable capability that can be demonstrated through other methods. If other counterspace capabilities can achieve the same outcome as a DA-ASAT system but not carry all their negative consequences, then it is possible that countries may move away from developing this sort of counterspace capability to ones that are deemed to be more usable, less damaging to the orbital environment, and not as rigidly escalatory.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 also put a spotlight on how the commercial sector is playing an increasingly interwoven role in national security issues. The first example of this is the role of SpaceX in helping the Ukrainian military with communications. Its Starlink ground terminals (needed to process the satellite communications) were sent very quickly at the beginning of the conflict directly in response to a tweet pleading with SpaceX’s owner Elon Musk to expedite the process.[6] At one point, Ukraine had thousands of Starlink ground terminals in the country, and while multiple governments were paying for most of the ground terminals, SpaceX was, according to some reports, largely paying for most of the internet connectivity itself.[7] SpaceX ran out of patience—with the rising costs of maintaining Ukraine’s access to Starlink ground terminals (writing to the Pentagon in September 2022 that the cost could be US$120 million through the end of 2022)[8] and also with its network being used in an active military conflict. It was reported that Musk refused to activate Starlink coverage to the Crimean coast, as he was worried that Ukrainian drones attacking Russia’s submarine fleet there would, in the words of Musk’s biographer, “cause a major war”.[9]

Russian government officials also began to grumble about the role of Western space companies in military conflicts and started to warn opaquely that they could be perceived as targets, given their roles in the active military conflict.[10] The commercial sector has played a part in wars before; 80 percent of US military satellite communications have been carried over commercial satellites, but the most prominent example would probably be the war in Ukraine.

The Role of Space Situational Awareness

There is one capacity that already has a big role to play in space and counterspace capabilities that will only become more important in the future: the ability to collect and interpret space situational awareness (SSA). SSA—or the identification, classification, and tracking of objects in Earth orbit, which includes both active satellites and space debris—is done for various reasons. It can be done for basic spaceflight safety, carrying out complicated activities in space like on-orbit servicing of satellites, or targeting other spacecraft. Thus, while states may want it for non-aggressive reasons, if one is going to be carrying out counterspace activities, SSA is non-negotiable. Historically, it was only the Cold War superpowers who had SSA capacity as it was an offshoot of radars and telescopes intended to keep watch for ICBMs coming over the North Pole; now we are seeing the increasing proliferation of this capacity around the world amongst established space actors building up their military space capabilities.

Most of the SSA data shared globally is collected and disseminated by the US via its Space Force’s 18th Space Defense Squadron. The US is working to change its internal process for sharing SSA data to one where the Department of Commerce is the primary outward facing agency; for now, it is the US military that is doing this (in the name of spaceflight safety). The 18th Space Defense Squadron monitors 48,000 pieces of debris, but it is possible that there could be hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of debris that are too small to track but could still impact, perhaps even in a lethal way, a satellite. Additionally, as of the time of writing this article, there are over 9,200 active satellites in orbit,[11] a majority of which come from one entity: SpaceX’s Starlink constellation, which contains roughly 5,170 active satellites.[12] This is an incredibly complicated picture of space traffic, and spaceflight safety only gets increasingly challenging as more actors, satellites, and debris get in orbit.

As such, it is possible that this could be a flashpoint between two rivals if there are competing ideas of how close satellites are getting to each other or if there is an impact on a satellite from a piece of orbital debris. If countries deliberately create debris through ASAT tests, that only ratchets up the difficulty of operating in orbit. These tests, since the beginning of the Space Age, have created 6,850 pieces of trackable debris, of which, nearly 3,500 are still in orbit and most likely will be staying there for years to come.[13]

Congestion On and Around the Moon

One place where there is potential for conflict is on and around the Moon. This is due to several reasons. The first is that the actors on the Moon are changing. We have gone from a few missions by the geopolitical superpowers to a situation with a much broader spectrum regarding countries and technical capabilities indicating that they have Moon missions. The Center for Strategic and International Studies released a report in 2022 that counted 106 planned cislunar and lunar missions by 19 countries and one multilateral organisation (the European Space Agency) over the next decade. Four countries have now successfully conducted soft landings on the Moon,[14] with India becoming the fourth in August 2023.[a]

Another change we see is the type of actors on the Moon. During the early parts of the Space Age, the only actors were civil space agencies conducting scientific and exploratory missions (although there were geopolitical undercurrents to their actions). Now we are seeing commercial missions to the Moon, and, in fact, two of the most recent countries that attempted and failed to achieve a soft landing on the Moon—Israel in 2019 and Japan in 2023—did not use their respective space agencies in their attempts but rather commercial players.

There have even been rumblings about possible military activities on or around the Moon, although that is most likely just speculation by enthusiasts looking to get more money for their particular Moon missions. Article IV of the Outer Space Treaty makes it clear that the Moon and other celestial bodies are to be used only for peaceful purposes: “The establishment of military bases, installations and fortifications, the testing of any type of weapons, and the conduct of military manoeuvres on celestial bodies shall be forbidden.”[15] Most likely, what will be seen are types of activities similar to what the US Space Force talks about in terms of improving cislunar situational awareness, something that, given the spiralling number of missions and actions on the Moon, is helpful from a spaceflight safety perspective; India’s Chandrayaan-2 lunar orbiter had to move three times[b] to avoid other lunar orbiters.[16]

Even without explicit military missions on the Moon, however, there are unavoidable geopolitical implications to activities there. This can be seen in the unease expressed about China’s lunar activities: that it landed a lander on the far side of the Moon, something other countries have not accomplished, is viewed through the lens of suspicion owing to political tensions on Earth.

Another potential source of friction is diverging governance mechanisms regarding the Moon. While the Outer Space Treaty applies to the Moon and other celestial bodies, the new uses of actors in space muddles its application. As such, the US launched its Artemis Accords in October 2020, intended to make explicit guidelines, principles, and best practices for civil space exploration on the Moon and beyond.[c],[17] Culling largely from principles already enshrined in the Outer Space Treaty, the Artemis Accords also cover de-confliction of activities, protecting heritage sites, dealing with space resources, and sharing space data. As of December 2023, 33 countries, including India, have signed the Artemis Accords.[18]

The Artemis Accords, in theory, are open to whichever countries are interested in signing them, including Russia and China. That said, while having over two decades of experience cooperating in the International Space Station (ISS) has helped NASA build the infrastructure to handle a Russian participant, it is unclear how it would set up something similar for China. Additionally, the impetus for the US Congress’s 2011 Wolf Amendment, establishing speed bumps for the US to conduct bilateral activities with China in space, was the idea that China would become a partner in the ISS; it is unclear how well the current Congress will respond to China potentially being a participant in US activities on the Moon.

There is also the planned Chinese-Russian International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), details of which were first made public in March 2021. Following a series of Moon missions planned by both Russia and China through the end of the decade, the ILRS is intended to create a crewed base on the Moon in the 2030s. While this initiative is also open to whoever is interested, as of December 2023, the response has been muted, with only eight signatories in total.[19] Part of this reluctance may stem from the concern that working with China on space issues may hamper working with the US in the same domain. For example, the UAE (one of the original signatories of the Artemis Accords) was supposed to have a payload on a Chinese lunar lander but pulled out in March 2023, citing concerns about how it might run afoul of US export control restrictions.[20]

Moreover, some countries may also be reluctant to formally establish ties with Russia after its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. If so, this at least may not be an issue for much longer: given the unexpectedly truncated ending of Russia’s Luna-25 Moon lander and financial and quality control issues with Russia’s civil space programme, Russia is unlikely to be able to contribute much in the future. This might explain why China’s presentations at the September 2023 International Astronautical Congress did not mention Russia.[21]

There is no reason that these two governance mechanisms—the Artemis Accords and the ILRS—cannot complement each other; indeed, it would make sense if their behaviour would be guided by similar principles. Yet, it is not outside the realm of possibility that they could turn into competing governance mechanisms. Given the harsh rhetoric used to ascribe intentions to the geopolitical rivals’ efforts on the Moon, what we may very well end up seeing are the political complications on Earth being replicated beyond it, paving the way for conflict in outer space to reverberate and engulf the Earth. At the very least, it can make working in the already harsh operating environment of the Moon even more difficult and dangerous.

Conclusion

Space is continuing to grow in importance for national security, how economies function, and how societies communicate. As such, ways in which nations can interfere with rivals’ access to space data and capabilities will also be of increasing interest.

Additionally, the evolution in how countries use space is leading to a massive challenge in space traffic management, both in Earth’s orbit and on and around the Moon, opening more ways in which conflict can extend to Earth from space (or vice versa). National actors should examine their goals for their space programmes to ensure that they do not inadvertently exacerbate existing tensions and create conflict in space.

The first version of this brief appeared in the ORF-GP volume, Future Warfare and Critical Technologies: Evolving Tactics and Strategies, which can be accessed here.