The coming fight for Space – and how we could lose it before it begins

By Robert Brüll, CEO, FibreCoat and Air Marshal Andrew Turner, CB, CBE

Robert Brüll, CEO, FibreCoat

Disrupt a major satellite network, and you disrupt entire economies. That’s how important space is to modern life. No wonder, then, that commercial space is booming. Even states with no prior record in space – Oman, the UAE, a number of African nations – are building capacity. Europe, though it lags behind the US and China, is a world-leader in certain areas. It’s now seeking autonomy through initiatives like IRIS², conscious that relying on other powers is risky in a changing world.

Across the board, resilience remains an afterthought. Generally speaking, smallsats, CubeSats, and other commercial spacecraft are built for speed and cost-efficiency, not robustness. The assumption is that protection is too costly and heavy to justify. Though that was true twenty years ago, materials science has since moved on.

Air Marshal Andrew Turner, CB, CBE

It’s just as well. Because space is unforgiving. It doesn’t take a hostile actor to down a satellite: radiation can scramble electronics, and severe temperature swings can wreck even sophisticated systems. But that’s not to say hostile actors aren't a threat. If an adversary wanted to cripple our spacecraft, it could – and the effect would be real. Hit a key constellation and you can plausibly throw communication, navigation and observation into chaos. It’s technically simple and, at this moment, politically tempting for those who wish to do us harm.

Shielding technology is no longer prohibitively heavy and expensive. New materials can be light, robust, cost-effective, and resistant to electromagnetic interference all at once. The bottleneck is political and industrial will. But that has to be addressed. Because space is critical infrastructure. It’s as central as energy grids or undersea cables – both robustly shielded. Spacecraft need the same protection. Shielded from natural hazards and attack, they also last longer and don’t break apart. That means less debris, and a safer space for all.

Opacity invites bad actors

Awareness is another problem. We don’t know exactly where satellites are. Opacity invites bad actors. Adversaries could photograph spacecraft and steal technology, block sunlight from reaching them so they run out of power, use lasers to blind them or fry their electronics, or use a nuclear detonation to trigger an electromagnetic pulse. Spying and interference is a threat. A concerted effort to improve satellite tracking and satellite resilience would together make a meaningful difference to the robustness of our infrastructure and our defence.

It’s senseless to wait for a disaster before we get going. With satellites multiplying and launch costs plunging, the opportunities for harm grow exponentially. There are push and pull factors at work here. But achieving this goal does require public and private effort. We’ll need to see governments and industry back materials innovation, starting at university and continuing at the natural commercial level. Materials science has a proven track record of unlocking new fields of capability, making investment in this area a wise thing to do.

From the European point of view, there are other reasons to press forward. The continent has an opportunity to lead. Already the European Space Agency has begun to promote resilience; it’s a good start. But with world-class materials researchers and engineers spread across the continent, the field is ours to own. If we harness our talent and the strength of our institutions, we can develop stronger, more secure spacecraft for ourselves and our allies. We should consider integrating security directly into our design standards and funding priorities, transforming resilience from a ‘nice-to-have’ into a ‘has-to-have’. Ambition, too, should be encouraged. Leadership in materials science means pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. We should urge engineers, academics, programme managers, and operators to take risks, fail fast, and innovate. Just as drone innovation competes with anti-drone innovation, materials innovation must compete with evolving threats to spacecraft.

Space is now a warfighting domain

As senior space commanders in the UK and US have recently said, space is now a warfighting domain, and the conflicts of the future will be fought in space as much as they will on land, in the air, and at sea. To a great extent, this is already true. The winners in those conflicts, and in the sphere of conflict in general, will be those who ensure that they can not only operate effectively in that domain, but protect what they operate. Foresight, planning, investment, and the will to see satellites as the crucial infrastructure they represent – all of this is vital in today’s world. Everyone wishes for a safer world. But we live at a dangerous time, and should act accordingly.