How Can the U.S. Government Safeguard Commercial Satellites from Threats?

Clayton Swope

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Though the Founding Fathers could not have anticipated today’s global security landscape, they did navigate a complex threat environment with similarities to the twenty-first century. The young United States emerged in a world where state and nonstate actors posed security risks to U.S. commercial and civilian interests both domestically and abroad, leaving a long-lasting impact on U.S. defense policymaking. In the centuries since, in peacetime and war, the United States has repeatedly demonstrated its resolve to protect and safeguard its national equities—its people, territory, economic interests, and national infrastructure—using its combined military power and civil capabilities. There should be no doubt that those imperatives to protect and defend extend into space, no more or less than they extend into other areas beyond U.S. national borders, such as the high seas.

As of 2025, there are around 10,000 active satellites orbiting the Earth, with the preponderance privately owned. Moreover, over 7,000 satellites are owned and operated by a single U.S. company—SpaceX. Over the next five years, the number of satellites in orbit will likely skyrocket, with tens of thousands of additional satellites—mainly for satellite communications—launched primarily by companies from the United States and China. As the number of satellites in orbits grows, so do the threats they face. The sharp growth in the number of satellites owned and operated by the private sector creates challenges as to how the U.S. government can best protect and defend private sector equities in space.

Fortunately, the United States government has many tools able to help protect U.S. interests in space from foreign and domestic threats that originate from nation-state and nonstate actors. Several agencies and departments, including the military, already perform central roles in those efforts, working to protect space-related elements of critical national infrastructure from physical and cyber threats. Law enforcement and judicial organizations at the federal, state, and local levels, intelligence agencies, and the military have responsibilities to help protect space systems and functions from threats.1 Private sector operators of space systems share in the responsibility to help protect themselves, particularly by mitigating their vulnerabilities to cyber threats.