Space provides a platform for mapping activities and facilitates navigation, communications, targeting and management. The role of space power in warfare is to provide support for other operating environments. It can be used to improve troop performance by increasing their accuracy, speed, mobility, endurance and targeting in other operating environments. The more space supports ground-based warfare, the more important it is to retain this advantage and prevent it from aiding the adversary. The aim is to ensure the availability of one’s own satellite services by raising the preventive threshold. If the military becomes over-dependent on satellite services, and/or it is too easy to influence them, these become attractive targets in warfare. While no action can prevent an attack with certainty, if the adversary believes that too many resources need to be committed, or that the benefit is minimal, an attack is less likely. In addition, the ability to operate without satellites, if necessary, must be maintained.

Space is a critical enabler for the joint warfare of different services, and space infrastructure is essential for military operations. Since the early 1990s, space systems provide near real-time support for tactical-level operations of the armed forces. New devices and technologies have been developed for the rapid acquisition, analysis and sharing of information. The activities and national security of the armed forces of non-space states are also currently highly dependent on space-based capabilities.

Cyber operations in space

Since at least 2010, Russia has been developing troops and capabilities for cyber operations in space with the aim of ensuring information superiority throughout the information space. Undermining the reliability of information is a critical component of this strategy and is used in peace, crisis, and war. Russia considers the information sphere, especially space-based data gathering and transfer, to be strategically crucial, and has thus begun to develop the defensive and offensive capabilities of its armed forces to also include the space environment.

In the early days of the war in Ukraine in February 2022, Russia targeted Viasat’s KA-SAT service with a cyberattack. The attack targeted satellite-based internet connections and disabled routers. The cyberattack cut service to tens of thousands of broadband customers across Europe and also disrupted Germany’s energy supply, as at least 3,000 wind turbines were cut off from the grid.

In April 2021, media reports suggested that China was building cyber weapons that would allow it to hijack its adversary’s satellites by mimicking the signals received by them. This would give China the ability to render the satellites of its enemies ineffective.

Directed energy weapons in space missions

Directed energy weapons pose a threat to space missions. Russia has several ground-based lasers that can blind satellite sensors, for example. Peresvet is a Russian laser weapon for air defence and anti-satellite warfare.

Electronic warfare in space operations

Russia sees electronic warfare (EW) as an important tool in the quest to obtain and maintain information superiority in the electromagnetic spectrum by, for example, interfering with its adversary’s command and control systems. Russia has built a wide variety of ground-based EW systems to jam and cripple GPS, radio networks, satellite communications (SATCOM) and radars. In February 2020, the Russian military confirmed that it is actively using EW weapons in Syria to counter GPS guided systems such as drones. In March 2022, aircraft in Finland encountered GPS signal interference. The investigation concluded that this was intentional harassment. In Norway, disturbances have been detected ever since 2017.

Anti-satellite systems

Anti-satellite weapons (ASAT) are designed to destroy satellites, while interception operations are aimed at preventing or interfering with enemy communications, satellite-based positioning systems, reconnaissance and other militarily useful functions carried out by satellites. Anti-satellite weapons include missiles or so-called “killer satellites”. Due to their high speed, their sheer mass alone (without any separate explosives) is enough to destroy a satellite.

A Direct-Ascent Anti-Satellite missile (DA-ASAT) is a ground-fired missile that can blow up a spacecraft. The United States and Russia have had DA-ASAT missiles ever since the Cold War began. China and India have both tested DA-ASAT missiles against their own satellites. The last test in Russia was carried out in April 2021. So far, the ASAT weapon has not been used in warfare.

Offensive orbital missions

In addition to ASAT weapons, Russia is exploring other ways of influencing adversaries’ satellites by exploiting dual-use capabilities. For example, inspection and maintenance satellites can approach other satellites in order to inspect and correct malfunctions. This same technique could also be used to attack an adversary’s satellites, resulting in temporary or permanent damage.

China is currently developing a new kind of space-age weapon – a “mother ship” that would allow a swarm of possibly hundreds of attack robots to fly. These CubeSat microsatellites are drones that weigh about a kilogram and can perform complex attacks that take advantage of the AI-based ability of a massive swarm of robots to strike from all directions simultaneously. Cubesats would make it easy to carry out an attack on completely unprotected telecommunications satellites, for example. The drones can calculate their own routes and the vectors of motion of their targets, and then decide how and when to attack.

Space Situational Awareness (SSA) systems

Russia’s 821st Main Centre for the Reconnaissance of Situations in Space (GTsRKO) serves as the headquarters of the Russian Army’s Space Surveillance Network. The Centre is part of the Russian Space Force and receives intelligence from various stations, such as the early warning network for missile attacks and space surveillance stations (Okno, Krona). The task of the Centre is to detect satellites, identify them and distinguish their orbits. It provides information that can be used to support space launches and the ASAT system, and it generates intelligence on the adversary’s military satellites.

The U.S. Space Surveillance Network (SSN) detects, tracks, catalogues and identifies artificial objects orbiting the Earth, such as active/inactive satellites, used rocket pieces, or fragmented space debris. The system is directed by the US Space Command and is operated by the US Space Force. The Space Surveillance Network includes special electro-optical, passive radio frequency (RF) sensors and radar sensors. It provides tracking and identification of space objects, satellite attack warning, and notifications to U.S. forces about satellite crossings.