“Counterspace” is becoming a buzz word for Western defense planners grappling with the increasing likelihood of combat in space.
As Russia and China deploy a widening variety of terrestrial and space-based technologies that can threaten the spacecraft of other countries, Western military officials are acknowledging they must be able to counter such threats. That, in turn, is spurring interest in everything from high-energy laser weapons to spacecraft that can perform rendezvous and proximity operations to spaceplanes.
French Vortex spaceplane may have counterspace usesEOS plans counter-satellite laser demonstration
“We didn’t start the race to weaponize space, but we have to make sure that we can continue to operate in that domain,” Troy Meink said in his first keynote as U.S. Air Force Secretary at the Air and Space Force Association’s Air, Space and Cyber Conference on Sept. 22. “We stood on the sideline probably too long.”
The sentiment is echoed by others. “I can see the need for a UK Space Defensce Center to enable clear command and control of our assets, accompanied by credible counterspace capabilities to protect and defend our vital national interests in space,” Air Chief Marshal Harv Smyth said Sept. 11 at the DSEI defense expo in London. Smyth’s comments came in his first public address since becoming the head of the UK Royal Air Force.
Brig. Gen. Jürgen Schrödl, who oversees space issues for the German Defense Ministry’s Military Strategy and Operations branch, said: “We need freedom in space to act. You can call it space superiority.”
Germany is looking to have two demonstrator satellites in orbit in about two years to work toward building a counterspace capability, Maj. Gen. Michael Traut, commander of the German Space Command, told Aviation Week on the sidelines of the Space Defense & Security Summit in Paris Sept. 16.
German aerospace institute DLR is talking to companies about building an observer satellite that would act as a shield for other spacecraft, with another providing the capability to disrupt a threat. Traut likened the systems to having a “sword and shield” in space.
Spain also is pursuing counterspace technology, with an eye on having something deployed around 2030, says Maj. Gen. Isaac Manuel Crespo Zaragoza, chief of the Spanish Space Command. Madrid is looking to cooperate, in part to avoid a proliferation of such systems, he added.
Spain plans to finalize a study about the concept by year-end, embark on a program and put that demonstration into geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO) in 3-4 years.
France already has announced plans for GEO and low-Earth-orbit, on-orbit counterspace activities. The country is now exploring other counterspace options and funding work on high-power lasers with an eye on better understanding how those systems could affect its own satellites. But that could also lead to an offensive counterspace capability, says Maj. Gen. Eva Portier, space deputy at French defense armaments agency DGA.
A nascent French military spaceplane effort also could have counterspace applications, says Maj. Gen. Philippe Koffi, DGA’s head of strategy for air, land and naval combat systems. France said in June that it would work with Dassault Aviation to develop the Vortex D spaceplane demonstrator due to fly by the end of 2028.
The 4-m-long (13-ft.) Vortex D demonstrator, which weighs less than one metric ton, will be launched to an altitude of around 100 km (62 mi.), fly at Mach 10-12 and land on a runway. The one-third-scale demonstrator’s goal is to validate technologies, such as heat shielding and reaction jet controls for exoatmospheric operations and aerodynamic controls when within the atmosphere for an operational system.
The initial Vortex D will be a one-third-scale design of an operational system that could also be crewed. Credit: Dassault Aviation
An operational system could be used to deploy satellites or carry sensors and deploy them to orbit within hours, Koffi said. It could also be a key asset for space control, he added.
If a constellation seems under threat, “we can intercept the object, inspect the object and even tow it to another orbit,” Koffi said. “In another scenario, we can also imagine that we have critical technologies in orbit, and we can bring them back rapidly.”
In the U.S., more money has flowed into space control than was planned only two years ago, Chief of U.S. Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman said at the Air and Space Forces Association gathering on Sept. 23. The U.S. is building the capability to “disrupt, deny, degrade that space-enabled targeting system that [China] has put in place,” he added.
Defense suppliers are looking to address the growing interest in the counterspace mission. Electro Optic Systems (EOS), for instance, is looking to demonstrate a new high-power laser system capable of burning through satellites, using it to help deorbit them and bring down space debris.
The Australian company, which already has one undisclosed customer, is starting to reach out to other potential buyers—among NATO members or allied states—to gauge interest in the system, EOS CEO Andreas Schwer told Aviation Week at DSEI. A demo of the system is likely to take place in the next 18 months, he added.
Schwer said the company, which has been marketing laser technology for space situational awareness, used a demonstration satellite it already had in orbit to validate that the technology works and can tightly focus power on a spacecraft. Those tests demonstrated that the power density is adequate, he added.
The counterspace laser system draws on the 150-kW-class laser technology the company also is using in its counterdrone system. However, the beamforming used in the space applications is different than for the drone application, in part because of the large distances involved to reach the target.
The company is looking at both stationary and mobile applications for the system, Schwer said.
To burn through a satellite’s structure, the laser would be aimed to strike perpendicular to the spacecraft. But the laser could also be aimed at the front of a satellite as it arcs in its orbit to induce photonic drag to slow the satellite, perhaps after it has been functionally disabled. It would take about a month to bring the satellite to a point at which it would reenter the atmosphere and burn up.
True Anomaly, whose Jackal rendezvous-and-proximity-operations spacecraft is being tested by the U.S. Space Force, also is looking to expand its activity abroad. In the coming 18 months, the company plans the first GEO demonstration of its Jackal, says Chief Financial Officer Mark Seidel. It also is looking to fly a new, unidentified payload it is developing to expand what the Jackal can do on orbit.
How to deal with threats to space systems is not just a government problem, asserts Capella Space CEO Frank Backes. “We are suffering as a community,” he said, citing instances of GPS and communications jamming.
Hardening systems against nation-state-based attacks will be a big issue in the next 12-24 months, he noted. Capella Space, through its new parent IonQ, is working with the U.S. Energy Department to bring quantum technology into space to harden against such issues as GPS jamming and to secure communications, Backes said.
Although much of the focus of the counterspace conversation is about what is happening on orbit, military space officials note that what happens on the ground is also critical.
“Space is happening by two-thirds or even three-quarters terrestrially,” Traut said. “We need to think about our systems of exploitation, of production, of launch of space command and control located on the ground, and we need to protect those systems as well.”