If the best defense is a good offense, then announcements in the European space sector this week are signaling that the region is preparing to move the ball upfield.
- The European Defence Fund tapped French OTV startup OSMOS X to lead a study on how to respond to threats on orbit.
- UK-based orbital security startup Shield Space launched a coalition of UK space companies to pitch the UK MoD on a space-based carrier-strike platform.
- Astroscale UK won a £15M (€18M) contract from the UK MoD to act as the prime contractor for a new, secretive in-space defense program, called LEDA.
- And Blackswan Space, the Lithuanian company that recently announced its RPO Kit product, published an open letter (originally sent in September) to UK Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State Liz Lloyd calling for greater funding of space control capabilities.
These announcements come in the same month as a Russian spy satellite got up-close-and-personal with an ICEYE sat operating over Ukraine. But European company officials told Payload that Europe’s urge to build up its in-space defense posture has been growing for years. That movement only recently turned from strategizing into action.
Fight training: Space has been home to spy satellites and military comsats since the early days of spaceflight. As national militaries become increasingly reliant on fleets of EO and comms satellites, however, it’s become obvious to military planners that assets in space can no longer simply observe and report.
As a result, national militaries are starting to invest in offensive capabilities.
“[LEDA] is going to form part of the permanent pathway to the UK’s understanding of orbital warfare, and that includes how to counter RPO threats,” Astroscale UK Director of Defense Alex Godfrey told Payload. “The UK is on the journey towards both offensive and defensive capabilities, as it outlines in the defense-investment plan.”
While Godfrey declined to share the specific capabilities being built by the LEDA program, he told Payload one of LEDA’s aims is to build up capabilities to block adversaries’ ability to threaten allied assets in space with impunity—either through novel operations or general deterrent.
Whatever the new in-orbit defense looks like, it’ll require a massive upgrade from previous RPO demos. Astroscale demonstrated its ability to approach and dock with an uncooperative asset on-orbit during the company’s ELSA-d mission in 2021, but keeping pace with an adversarial spacecraft (which can actively maneuver away) is another mission entirely, Godfrey said.
The effort will require new strategies for how and when to deploy autonomy, as well as robust training programs to educate military members on how to fly the new war machines.
“It’s all very well, us creating a spacecraft that can do these maneuvers, but if no one can operate them, it’s like selling an aircraft without anyone being a pilot… So, we do need to create the Top Gun school for space control,” said Godfrey—who added that space-to-space conflicts will likely behave more like chess than Red Baron-esque dogfights.
Robotic arms race: The announcements this week highlighted a definitive shift in tone from European militaries compared with years prior. Companies across the region have grown strangely comfortable talking about creating deterrence through physical action in orbit.
For instance, Shield Space cofounder and CEO Graeme Ritchie told Payload that the UK military should be acquiring spacecraft with a range of “effectors,” from non-kinetic capabilities, to ASAT and nuclear weapons.
It doesn’t seem like Europe is ready to jump straight to nukes, but—at least for the OSMOS X tactical-capture project—participating European countries are actively building physical effectors that can grab hold of adversarial spacecraft, and weld on things like jammers or propulsion systems.
Ultimately, the shared goal of company officials across the region is to ensure that what happened to ICEYE this month can’t be repeated without pushback.
“As the [Ukraine] war is running into the fifth year. We’re thinking about what to do…and if it’s going to spill into something that’s bigger,” Blackswan CEO Marius Klimavičius told Payload. “[If it does] involve the rest of NATO, then we will need to be more aggressive—not just on our rhetoric, but also on the capabilities that we have.”
Attack plan: The announcements this week also featured a collective realization that Europe and its allies are stronger when they can act together.
In an age of increased sovereignty concerns, where it seems like every country in the region is buying or building its own nationally run EO and comms constellations, there’s a contradictory realization that collective defense in orbit is more effective than multiple piecemeal systems.
“There are a lot of adversarial assets to protect against, and if you want to do that efficiently, you have to think about it at an alliance level,” Godfrey said. “[I’m] trying to push to allies the idea of a GEO patrol force… if we look at it as a protection of an area rather than our own specific assets, we’ll be much more likely to succeed against adversaries that are less allied.”
So, look on the bright side: When the US confirmed that it has space control weapons in orbit, what they really meant was we have space control weapons on orbit.
Argotec Raises €50M To Scale Small Sat Manufacturing
NUO Space S.p.A—the space arm of the Milan-based private equity firm—led the round.
Shield Space Launches UK Space Superiority Coalition
The UK Space Superiority Coalition brings together space companies across the UK in an effort to build a space-based carrier strike force.
OSMOS X Tapped to Lead EDF-backed Tactical Capture Consortium
The Europeans are gearing up for a fight in orbit.
Exclusive: DoD Taps Orbital Operations for Cryogenic Spacecraft Demo
The Long Beach, CA, startup has won up to $35M from the DoD under a prototype Other Transaction Agreement to fly a full-scale, in-orbit demo of Astraeus—its cryogenic-maneuvering vehicle.
Argotec, an Italian smallsat manufacturer, has raised €50M ($55.8M) to ramp up how many satellites it can build each year.
NUO Space S.p.A—the space arm of the Milan-based private equity firm—led the round.
Meet Argotec: Since its founding in 2008, Argotec has already built up some flight heritage, including two microsatellites that flew with the NASA DART and Artemis I missions. The company focuses on building small sats up to 350kg.
Keep reading