One of the conscious efforts of the military spacefaring community is to contract commercial space-based services to support military missions. In many ways, their aims are being realized with Starlink, Planet, Maxar, and other commercial communications and imagery providers.
These commercial systems, however, are vulnerable to military attack. Detailing these vulnerabilities and how hostile actors might hijack these systems is a key focus of NPEC’s latest volume of commissioned research (see below)—The Coming Collision of Commercial and Military Space.
The volume’s opening chapter, by Crystal Tu, examines the questionable resiliency of Taiwan’s communications systems—including their space-based assets—and how China might disrupt or disable them. This research supported a war game in which China countered Taiwan’s communications systems. The game’s after-action report can be found in the volume’s appendix.
The next four chapters include an examination of space safety zones by Melissa de Zwart, a brief on how best to defend U.S. commercial space systems by Marc Berkowitz, a review of space liability law by Christopher Johnson, and an analysis of how space conflict could draw in major powers by Brent Ziarnick.
These and the volume’s final chapters helped guide the design of another war game, which focused on proxy wars in the Middle East and the possible hijacking of commercial systems by hostile actors. The first, by Makena Burns, reviews the latest commercial space developments in the region. The second, by John Krzyzaniak, examines the future of Iran’s military and space programs. Again, the details of this game can be found in the volume’s appendix.
In addition to clarifying the space headaches ahead, the volume’s research is suggestive of several reforms the United States and its allies should pursue.
As always, I’m curious to get your take.
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