Evidence: Recently Added
US military leaders are legitimately concerned. US intelligence officials recently released an assessment stating that Russia will likely deploy new antisatellite weapons within the next few years for use against US space assets.5 US Strategic Command’s Gen John Hyten also stated recently, “From a defense perspective, the isolation [as a result of Western sanctions] has not slowed the Russian modernization program . . . on the space side.”6 Russia also remains the only country currently delivering US astronauts to the International Space Station and continues to pro- duce the main engine used in the United States’ Atlas V rocket, setting up uncomfortable dependencies for the United States.
Regarding China, Air Force Lt Gen Steven Kwast has argued that Beijing has a relative advantage in its preparedness for space conflict, stating, “In my best military judgment, China is on a 10-year journey to operationalize space. We’re on a 50-year journey.”7 In civil space, a major US news magazine recently concluded that, in contrast to cur- rently vague US goals, “China is boldly moving ahead with its own space exploration efforts, and with little ambiguity about its mission,”8 given its continuing manned spaceflights, new Hainan Island launch site, and plans for larger boosters.
It’s still premature to talk of Iran employing or possessing advanced space capabilities like those of China and Russia. But even if Iran’s space doctrine firmly eschews offense, self-defense space operations involving means already at its disposal such as lasers, jammers, or hacking could still disrupt a sprawling range of services the international community is increasingly dependent upon, including navigation and communications. Moreover, instead of striking space assets, states could target the other two more accessible components of space systems—ground control and telemetry facilities, and the radars which ensure Earth-space communications links.
One recent assessment by a U.S. think tank persuasively challenged the premise that Iran is using its space program to mask ICBM development, thereby questioning the Trump administration’s characterization of the threat. But as competition among the world’s spacefaring nations gears up, space as the ultimate high ground of strategy will only grow in importance for Iran—especially given the relatively sparse instruments of deterrence otherwise at its disposal.
Iran, for its part, has been slowly but steadily improving capabilities linked to intelligence, reconnaissance, and early-warning systems. It has reportedly already managed to use space technologies to spoof the GPS system of an American drone, blind a U.S. spy satellite using directed energy, and use advanced jamming techniques against western commercial satellites. More hypothetically, with improved tracking and positioning technology, further ballistic advances could offer Iran the potential to develop Earth-based direct-ascent or on-orbit ASAT missiles, which could also target the satellites and Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance platforms (known as C4ISR) that adversaries such as the United States increasingly use in integrated military operations.
Certainly, something needs to be done. The surging threats to the stability and security of the inherited space regime have brought us to an inflection point, and the United States has the most to lose from a deterioration in the usability and reliability of satellite resources. Even if American ingenuity and economic muscle could “win” an arms race in space, such competi- tion would only propel the world more vigorously in a direction we do not want to go. A planet bristling with advanced counter-space capabilities in three or more states would be precarious, indeed, and perennial notions of deterrence would provide only weak assurance. Because of the current, and likely future, asymmetry in the exploitation of space—as the United States civilian economy and military forces continue to rely on satellites more heavily than our rivals do—the exposure and vulnerability are asymmetric, too. The constellation of policy objectives now should include efforts to reduce and refine the offensive capabilities of our potential adversaries—and arms control offers the surest mechanism. A regime of reciprocal restraint from the pursuit of ASAT capabilities would both play to long-term U.S. strengths and promote a more durable international regime for all.208
Notably, this proposal does not physically prevent a state from undertaking unfriendly or destructive behaviors in outer space, nor does it define additional offenses against the public order of outer space. Instead, by pene- trating the cloak of invisibility that currently obscures some remote activi- ties, enhanced global SSA would simply make it harder for a bad actor to get away with those adverse practices in secret. It relies upon greater trans- parency to elicit better behavior, since states would have less expectation of impunity.187 Moreover, the program might be capable of providing a degree of “early warning” about emerging threatening behaviors via observation of nascent or ambiguous activities, and it could provide internationally-ac- cepted documentary evidence of countries’ space activities, helping to satisfy global standards of objective proof.
An upgraded SSA capability could also provide spin-off benefits in enhancing awareness of space weather and related phenomena. These applica- tions would be largely collateral to the system’s security goals, but they could be quite valuable on a day-to-day basis in supporting satellite operations.188
With that background, the proposal for enhanced international SSA now appears. The suggestion here is that countries would freely contribute equipment, data, and expertise to a shared global mechanism for monitoring space and broadly reporting the results. The apparatus would be more capable than any one country could achieve on its own, since it would draw upon the amalgamated resources from all over the world and assemble the best equipment and talent to process and disseminate the acquired data. Presumably, the United States, China, and Russia, as the predominant space actors, would take the lead in developing, outfitting, and staffing the consortium, but other states would be expected to contribute, too. The system would include space-based and ground-based sensors, together with rapid communications links and central processing, to ensure timely, global, and persis- tent observation of all orbital regions. The scheme would attempt to record and publicize “ephemeris data” (information about the current and predicted location) of all operational and defunct space craft and significant debris, as well as whatever information can be gleaned about the satellite’s characteristics (for example, size, shape, and composition).182
At the same time, it should be noted that there are costs to improved SSA, too. The United States and other countries conduct some “black” sat- ellite operations, in which they intend that the location, orbital path, and functions—or even the mere existence—of the vehicle remain secret. The public U.S. satellite inventory, for example, does not include selected intelli- gence-gathering objects, and conjunction warnings are not issued about them.179 That covertness is more difficult to maintain when diverse SSA sources proliferate. Already, the satellite inventories made public by some states reveal data that others attempt to restrict, and even amateur astrono- mers are able to detect, track, and identify some classified systems—the race between the “hiders” and the “seekers” becomes more one-sided as SSA capabilities expand.180
This growing—and somewhat overlapping and redundant—investment in synoptic SSA capabilities provides multiple benefits. First, greater sensi- tivity can provide enhanced warning about possible collisions, which have already begun to plague space actors.175 Just as important, improved intelli- gence-gathering can reduce the frequency of false alarms, mitigating the number of occasions on which a satellite is forced to undertake an expensive, and ultimately unnecessary, evasion maneuver.176
More ominously, if something does go wrong with a satellite, SSA systems can help diagnose the cause. A sudden interruption in satellite functioning could be triggered by an internal malfunction, a collision with an undetected piece of natural space material, an accidental impact with another human-created object, or a deliberate attack by an enemy. Obviously, the appropriate response would be quite different in the distinct scenarios, and it can be quite difficult to gauge the source and motivation remotely.177
Some space actors do not want to rely upon an SSA apparatus that is owned and controlled exclusively by the U.S. government,168 and they have pursued independent capabilities.169 Russia has the world’s second-largest capacity, cataloging some 5000 space objects, and has announced plans to upgrade the system via deployment of ten next-generation ground stations.170 The European Union and the European Space Agency have a limited but growing SSA capability, and China, India, and Canada have devoted increased resources to this effort, as well.171
The private sector, too, has invested in SSA mechanisms—part of what some observers label “the democratization of space”—and it is official U.S. policy to try to incorporate this commercial input into the governmental system.172 Space Data Association, founded by major commercial satellite operators, has become a focal point for sharing information about members’ satellite positions, and additional entrepreneurs have undertaken to provide independent, timely, non-discriminatory data.173 Likewise, zealous amateur astronomers, university observatories, and other space enthusiasts comb the heavens and report their findings.174
The second objective for this partial test-ban regime is to avoid the generation of unnecessary space debris, via effectively channeling any ASAT competition into the somewhat less damaging modes. That is, if countries are going to continue, at least for now, in their headlong pursuit of ASAT capabilities, at least they might agree to forego the most destructive algorithms.131
China’s 2007 test was a true watershed, highlighting the catastrophic harm of massive, long-lived debris creation, and perhaps inspiring the global community to avoid further self-destructive fouling of our own communal orbital nest.132 In one sense, this new awareness may already be too late— some theorize that there is already so much debris in space that widespread collisions are now unavoidable, and these impacts would create additional plumes of debris that would cascade through space in a destructive, unending chain reaction.133 As there is, at present, no operational capacity for actively removing debris from space,134 the world’s space community has come to place a greater emphasis upon avoiding the creation of new space junk, especially reviling the most long-lasting debris injected into the most popular and useful orbital slots.135