European militaries rush to catch up on space traffic mapping

PARIS — The boom in space activity of the past few years has made Earth’s orbit more crowded and dynamic, and Western militaries need to step up space awareness to counter growing threats in the domain, defense officials and space company executives said.

Commercial use of space now dwarfs the military, with thousands of new satellites joining potential menaces such as Russia’s roving Luch Olymp inspector satellite. Defense firms including Safran and space-data specialists such as True Anomaly and Vyoma see an opportunity to help defense departments adapt to the ever-growing volume of extraterrestrial activity, they said at an industry summit in Paris last week.

The number of active satellites in orbit has more than tripled in just four years, according to European Space Agency data. Most of the new space activity is happening in low Earth orbit, where agile spacecraft zip around at 27,500 kilometers per hour, while much of the surveillance by Western militaries is built on systems adapted to decades of tracking relatively static geostationary orbits.

“Space is becoming more and more challenged, more and more competitive, and we have to prepare for problems in the future,” Gen. Philippe Adam, the head of French Space Command, said at the Space Defense & Security Summit on Sept. 17.

In response, France’s Safran is adding ground stations to track satellite radio emissions, German firm Vyoma expects to launch its first telescope into low Earth orbit next year for visual reconnaissance, while Colorado-based True Anomaly in April won a U.S. Space Force contract for a maneuvering satellite that can take a close look at potential adversaries in various orbits.

Governments spent $58.4 billion on space defense and security in 2023, with $40.2 billion contracted to industry, according to industry consultant Novaspace, which organized the summit. Spending included $4 billion for space-domain awareness.

Space is “more and more congested and contested,” said Maj. Gen. Brian W. Gibson, director for plans and policy at U.S. Space Command. “It’s important for all of us, like any other domain, to make sure we don’t lose sight of our military responsibilities for protection and defense.”

Earth has around 10,200 active satellites in orbit, from around 3,000 in September 2020, according to an ESA count, with companies including SpaceX and Amazon planning many more. That’s in addition to more than 40,000 pieces of space debris circling Earth big enough to blast apart your typical satellite.

U.S. Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman said last week space-domain awareness and counter-space capabilities are critical needs that require more resources in fiscal 2026, while the head of U.S. Space Command Gen. Stephen Whiting said Wednesday that current space tracking is insufficient for future conflict with countries fielding advanced space capabilities.

The U.S. is the biggest spender on space defense and security with $38.9 billion, followed by China and Russia, and France trails in fourth place with $1.3 billion, Novaspace says. Yet whereas defense dominated the first three decades of the Space Age, military payloads now make up a fraction of the total, according to the ESA data.

The European Union expects 50,000 more satellites to be launched in the next decade, mainly into low Earth orbit, or LEO, as cheaper rockets and the development of nanosatellites have made space accessible even to startup firms and universities. That only heightens the challenge of tracking space traffic and spotting bad actors, military leaders at the summit said.

The lack of a full picture of space and the absence of regulation create a “really, really high” probability of miscalculations that could potentially lead to crisis or even war, said Maj. Gen. Isaac Crespo Zaragoza, chief of staff of Spain’s Space Command. He said developing some degree of space awareness is a priority for the service.

“We have no map of space, it’s a drama for the military,” said Col. Ludovic Monnerat, head of space domain for the Swiss Armed Forces.

There’s so little available space-awareness data and so much demand that the market exceeds supply, according to Vyoma CEO Stefan Frey. His company will initially focus on tracking objects for military customers, before expanding beyond defense as its fleet grows to 10 or 12 satellites, Frey told Defense News.

The “new, very dynamic world” of agile satellites no longer allows for planning to take days, and the amount of unpredictable debris in orbit means the latency of observations needs to be reduced dramatically, Frey said. Vyoma will be able to spot most LEO objects every 45 minutes once its constellation is in place, according to the CEO, who said European militaries right now might be receiving observations every four to eight hours.

Space awareness is key to security and stability, and “clearly an area that needs to be invested in,” according to True Anomaly CEO Even Rogers. He expects a future where optical, radio and radar data from space and on the ground is fused into a “rapid, real-time picture of the environment so that operators can make good decisions.”

The challenge of low Earth orbit is the fast speed at which objects move, meaning reaction times of even two hours might be too slow, compared to maneuvers in geostationary orbit that might be planned days in advance, said Philippe de Mijolla, Safran vice-president of sales and marketing for satellite communications and space awareness.

Safran is expanding its network of ground-based radio antennas tracking geostationary objects to add data on low Earth orbits, the executive told Defense News. The company has been gathering experimental LEO data for nearly two months, and expects to start selling the data as part its WeTrack service early next year, he said.

Safran is growing the tracking network to 125 stations from 94, spread across France, the U.S., Thailand and Australia, though de Mijolla said he’ll happily ask his board to fund additional antennas if demand is there.

Militaries have to work with civilian and commercial operators to keep track of it all, according to Adam. “Their concern about security and safety is exactly the same as ours,” the general said. “Civilian or commercial integration is an essential part of our discussions right now.”

Civilian operators require better space-domain awareness to call out unacceptable behavior in orbit, from persistent jamming to a cyberattack or a close approach, said Rebecca Cowen-Hirsch, head of government strategy and policy at commercial operator Viasat, which faced of a cyberattack by Russia in February 2022 just before the invasion of Ukraine.

Switzerland’s Monnerat said space needs rules of behavior, and those endangering functionality and safety of orbits should be named and shamed. Safran’s de Mijolla said the ability to attribute hostile actions in space will be an active deterrent that can hopefully prevent conflict there, “something we all want to avoid.”

Governments already rely on industry for space awareness and response, with the U.S. awarding contracts to True Anomaly and Rocket Lab USA in April for rendezvous and proximity operations. Safran provides its radio-frequency monitoring data to countries including France, the U.S. and Switzerland.

France last week turned to local nanosatellite builder U-Space as a partner for two satellites in low Earth orbit, one to provide detailed data on nearby objects and another able to target them. That follows a contract for France’s Hemeria to build the Yoda patroller satellite for geostationary orbit. “We need to be up there to see what’s happening,” Adam said.

Orbital threats include multiple rendezvous and proximity operations, not only by Russia’s Luch Olymp, but also others, said Philippe Rosius, head of the Galileo Security Monitoring Centre within the EU Agency for the Space Programme. And there’s a daily threat of natural or man-made debris in space that threatens satellites, he said.

China and Russia are able to deploy anti-satellite weapons, while India and others have the capacity, Rosius said. Russia’s test in 2021 using a missile to destroy one of its own satellites generated more than 1,500 pieces of trackable orbital junk that may remain in orbit for decades, according to U.S. Space Command.

Kinetic weapons are the most dangerous and risk creating an unsustainable space environment, which is why the U.S. and some its allies have committed to not testing them there, said Rogers at True Anomaly. “You can’t win so well that you screw up the domain for future generations.” Adam said France wants to avoid putting kinetic weapons in space that would risk creating debris.

The EU in March presented the bloc’s first-ever strategy to protect its space assets, highlighting a need for near-real time monitoring and better capability to identify and attribute threats, citing the “highly political” nature of attributing a menace to a third country and deciding on a response.

“This is really key, to understand these threats, before being able to mitigate them and to take actions to continue operating in space in a safe and secure manner,” Rosius said. “Threats against the space system and the space environment will not cease, and will increase in the coming years. So we need to be ready to continue protecting our critical infrastructure.”