The Importance of Sovereign Australian Space Capabilities

Some time ago – more than a decade – I worked with Alan Dupas, the noted French space expert, on a project for a European space company on the future of space in 2020. We focused on the key point that although a space company was most closely identified with launchers and satellites, the future was its engagement in the global information society.

Let me say that we were not greeted with cheers and love. Rather the major company we were dealing with shuddered at the thought that its “things” might be overshadowed by a product – data, communications and information. This of course puts a space company into competition with a range of providers of data, communications and information.

Space is enabler of much which goes on in earth providing the nodes and networks of an information society. But space is costly, complex and governments are loath to invest more than they have to in such “esoteric” technology whose investments might cut into social spending or green energy or whatever the priority is for a sitting government.

This is certainly the case for Australia. Dr. Malcolm Davis at the September 26, 2024 Sir Richard Williams Foundation seminar provided a compelling case for Australian space investments and acceleration of engagement in the space sector.

This is how presented and discussed this important subject:

Space is contested and congested. When we’re talking about resilience, both being contested and congested are really becoming much more acute as a challenge.

Assuring space access for the ADF can be defined in different ways, but I would argue that it’s not just about being able to use a foreign provider. It is also about sovereign space capabilities.

Space domain awareness allows space control. If you look at the national defense strategy and integrated investment program, it highlighted space domain awareness. Then importantly made the point that space control is an important task for the ADF..

We can’t have assured access to space if we only rely on foreign launch providers to give us that capability. We need to prioritize our national space capabilities, including sovereign launch. We need to pursue space policy as a whole of nation endeavor.  

We don’t currently have that.

It was started by the previous government. Those efforts were canceled by the current government. I would argue that we need to restore a whole of nation space strategy.

Space is an operational domain in its own right…

We’re seeing in the arsenals of our adversaries counter space capabilities. And these capabilities do not apply only in hot war scenarios. They could also be used in terms of gray zone operations as well…

We need to think in terms of how we defend against what the Chinese call system destruction warfare or how they can utilize counter space capabilities along with cyber attack, electromagnetic operations, and kinetic operations to take down critical Information Infrastructure as quickly as possible…

Part of resilience is managing space traffic and that requires a new approach to how we think about space domain awareness, how we manage the increasing amount of material that’s in orbit.

Space is increasingly competitive in the sense that it’s no longer just the sole domain of the major powers. It is also about the activity of small to medium powers, including Australia, as well as commercial actors.

And space has become democratized through a combination of falling costs that are driven by new technologies which allows more states to do things in space than previously was considered possible or financially viable.

That means there is a greater possibility that you could get either non state actors, commercial actors or hostile state actors essentially using space in a way that’s inimical to our interests.

But it also brings opportunities in the sense that more states like Australia can actually do things in space that previously were beyond our capabilities…

We’re starting to think about space 3.0. Space 1.0 was the Apollo era of big space agencies and the activities were the taxpayer funded and government led.

Space 2.0 was the establishment and the emergence of commercial space activities which really transformed the space environment and global space activity,

Space 3.0 is that next step that beckons in the future. It’s that opportunity to do space-based industry and a manufacturing capability, a space based economy that exploits space resources and new environments such as lunar space.

We have to challenge the orthodox mindsets that I think currently exist within government which primarily thinks about space in terms of satellites and rockets and start thinking about how we can utilize space in radically new and different ways that generate prosperity and growth.

He then went on to discuss how adversarial actions in space (war in space) can bring down or dismantle space infrastructure and that this infrastructure is a key part of a functioning information system for Australia.

This meant that the Australian government needed to get out of any stoved-piped look at space and take a broader view which would include space policy in the whole of nation concept of defence.

He then added:

The democratization of space technology means that space is no longer dominated purely by the major actors, so it’s far more unpredictable as an operating environment. Increasingly, counter space technologies are moving in radically different ways and posing direct threats to space assets.

For example, If you think back to the Cold War, there was no such thing as cyber warfare. Now we have the potential opportunity for cyber-attacks on satellites that can create scalable or reversible effects to disable or deny. And so suddenly, space weapons or space warfare or counter space capabilities become far more usable because it’s in the interests of our adversaries to use them.

And I think that our adversaries recognize that space warfare and counter space capabilities can generate decisive strategic effect.

Space is critical for maintaining how we fight wars and how we undertake joint and integrated operations across multiple domains, but it’s also vital for sustaining our information-based economies and societies…

Modern information-based societies depend on space capabilities to function, in particular through satellite communications, but also positioning, navigation and timing services. Everything that we do in a modern society from using information on our mobile phones, to our computers, to stock markets, logistics systems, all of that depends on the space capabilities.

That dependency will grow in the future, particularly as we get more and more reliant on processes of change associated with the Internet of Things and pursue the fourth industrial revolution. Such transitions demand that we have continued access to space

Dr. Davis then went on the identify the various means of space attack and degradation which adversaries have already demonstrated.

And his point was clear – If Australia wants to protect its free and open society, if it wants to support a “rules-based” order which in my view is shrinking globally, how can you do so without an effective space engagement policy?