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In July 2026, US Space Command published its Space Warfighting Environment 2040, anticipating proliferated satellite constellations capable of regenerating under attack, vulnerable terrestrial infrastructure, and architectures required to sustain military effects under persistent pressure. Meanwhile, the war with Iran has prompted commercial Earth observation providers to restrict access to satellite imagery across the Middle East. Then, in August 2026, Ukraine struck the Progress Rocket Space Centre in Samara, Russia, associated with Soyuz launch vehicles and the planned Rassvet low-Earth orbit satellite communications constellation.

Taken separately, these might appear to be technical episodes in the ongoing militarisation of space. Together, they point to a more consequential change in the character of space warfare. In the future, a space war may begin with an attempted knockout, but it will most likely become a prolonged contest over who can preserve, deny, and regenerate space-enabled services while the wider war continues on Earth.

This is not how space war has usually been imagined. For much of the past several decades, Western thinking has been preoccupied with a “space Pearl Harbor” scenario: a sudden attack against a small number of expensive military satellites that would render an opposing force blind, deaf, and dumb. This scenario reflects the architecture of the late Cold War with exquisite and difficult-to-replace satellites supporting forces built around speed, precision, and manoeuvre. An opening attack, therefore, promises consequences out of proportion to the number of satellites destroyed.

What is less often acknowledged is that the scenario also contains an assumption about war itself: that war will be comparatively short and that an early information advantage can be converted into decisive terrestrial results before the enemy recovers. The contemporary wars in Ukraine and the Middle East suggest otherwise. These conflicts are characterised by attrition, adaptation, and the severe constraint of manoeuvre across an increasingly transparent battlespace. Forces that concentrate or expose themselves are rapidly detected and lethally attacked, while neither side is easily able to turn technological advantage into a conclusive political result.

Proliferated low-Earth-orbit satellite constellations have contributed to this transparency, though they are not its only cause. Commercial satellite imagery, satellite communications, tactical drones, electronic intelligence, and AI-assisted data fusion now form an integrated sensor-effector system. Ukraine’s Delta network combines multiple sources into a near-real-time battlefield picture. Yet the result has often been dispersion, concealment, and a relentless struggle to find the enemy before being found in turn.

This, in turn, creates a paradox. The transparent battlefield makes the temporary denial of space services exceptionally valuable. Even a short interruption of communications, navigation, or surveillance might create the local and temporary conditions required for movement or attack. But proliferated satellite constellations make the comprehensive and permanent blinding of an adversary much more difficult. Space control will therefore be less a matter of achieving a stable condition of superiority than of creating recurring windows of advantage in particular places and times for particular purposes.

The object of attack is also changing. A constellation is a system comprising satellites, links, terminals, ground stations, software, factories, and launch sites. The service fails when a critical part of that chain fails. An adversary unable to destroy thousands of satellites may instead jam signals, corrupt data, compromise the network, or strike the industrial capacity required to replace losses.

Ukraine’s attack on the Progress rocket centre in Samara is significant in this regard. Proliferated satellite constellations in orbit can coexist with considerable concentration of supporting infrastructure on Earth: hundreds of satellites may depend upon a handful of launch sites and factories. The Samara strike belongs within the history of space warfare, even though no satellite was attacked; it targeted the machinery through which spacepower – the ability in peace, crisis, and war to exert prompt influence to, in, and from space - is generated.

The Iran war illustrates the same principle differently. The commercial Earth observation company Planet has delayed access to Middle East imagery because of concerns that it might be used against U.S. and allied forces. Here, capability is constrained through contracts, customer access, and the timing of data releases rather than physical force – in effect, shutter control. Restricting one company cannot prevent an adversary from acquiring imagery elsewhere, but the episode shows that the wider contest concerns the use of information, not merely the survival of satellites.

Proliferated satellite constellations, while making architectures more resilient against selective attack, may encourage the development and use of weapons capable of much larger effects. If attacking satellites individually becomes futile, an adversary may turn to wide-area electronic warfare, simultaneous cyber compromise, debris-producing attacks, or even nuclear detonation in space.

The US intelligence community’s 2026 threat assessment states that Russia is developing a satellite intended to carry a nuclear anti-satellite weapon. Such a weapon would not discriminate between American, allied, adversary, or neutral spacecraft. As the 1962 Starfish Prime test demonstrated, a high-altitude explosion can create artificial radiation belts that persist for long periods of time after detonation. This would amount to environmental warfare against near-Earth space, potentially disabling replacement satellites as well as those already in orbit.

Such consequences may make nuclear use in space self-deterring, at least in the opening stages of war. The 2026 Global Counterspace Capabilities Report notes that, despite the continued development of counterspace capabilities by thirteen countries, only non-destructive forms are currently being used in active conflicts. But this should provide little comfort, as a state facing defeat in a prolonged conventional war may calculate risk differently from one contemplating the costs of aggression in peacetime. The more resilient proliferated constellations become against conventional attack, the greater the temptation may be to seek more indiscriminate means of disabling them. […]

The complete version of this analysis is available on the AstroAnalytica website.

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DECISION SIGNALS

Recent developments that indicate significant strategic changes in the space domain with an impact on government policies, investment choices, and business decisions:

1. America Turns Space Transportation into Strategy

NSPM-17, the new U.S. National Space Transportation Policy, is considerably more consequential than another launch-policy update. Washington now explicitly treats transportation to, from and within space as a national and economic security capability, spanning VLEO through cislunar space and beyond. The target is infrastructure capable of supporting more than 1,000 launches and reentries annually by 2030, alongside responsive launch within 48 hours, additional reentry sites, relocatable launch equipment, standardized spacecraft-launcher interfaces, on-orbit servicing and logistics, and greater use of commercial providers. Industrial policy is integral. The administration wants a resilient domestic transportation base while using export reform, foreign sales, co-investment, and regulatory alignment to expand American capabilities and standards internationally. U.S. government payloads will, with limited exceptions, use American-manufactured vehicles.

Washington is beginning to treat space transportation as strategic infrastructure rather than merely a launch service. The ability to replenish constellations during conflict, remanifest payloads rapidly, manoeuvre spacecraft, return material from orbit, and eventually move throughout cislunar space becomes part of national power. For Europe, the warning is stark. Europe can possess excellent satellites yet remain strategically dependent if it cannot move them where and when required. America is building an increasingly integrated space logistics ecosystem while simultaneously positioning its industry to capture allied markets. Europe, therefore, needs more than “sovereign launch”: it requires a transportation strategy encompassing responsive launch, reentry, orbital transfer, servicing, logistics, and wartime replenishment. Otherwise, European strategic autonomy may end at the launchpad.

2. Israel Moves Towards Offensive Spacepower

Israel is preparing a significant expansion of its military space capabilities. According to The Jerusalem Post, the Defence Ministry’s multi-year plan envisages layered, persistent space-based intelligence; resilient military communications; capabilities to protect Israeli satellites against hostile spacecraft; and, most strikingly, weapons capable of attacking terrestrial targets from space. The programme is being developed by MAFAT, the IDF and Israeli defence industry, with recent operations demonstrating the growing importance of SAR satellites for persistent targeting. The declared objective is “security superiority” in space: preserving freedom of action while making space an increasingly integral component of Israeli military power rather than simply an intelligence-supporting domain.

Details of the proposed weapons remain unclear, and ambition should not be confused with deployed capability. Nevertheless, the announcement potentially marks an important regional threshold. Israel is signalling that space control and offensive operations are becoming part of Middle Eastern deterrence and warfighting. That matters beyond Israel and Iran. Gulf states increasingly dependent upon space-enabled ISR, communications, and missile warning must now consider the survivability and control of their own architectures, while Iran has additional incentives to develop counterspace capabilities and strengthen partnerships with Russia and China. The result could be a regional action-reaction cycle extending competition vertically from terrestrial, maritime, air, and cyber domains into orbit. Middle Eastern space strategies can therefore no longer be primarily economic and prestige projects: space resilience, protection, reconstitution, and escalation management are becoming national-security requirements.

3. Shutter Control Worked. That Is the Problem.

The Iran conflict has exposed a structural weakness in commercial Earth observation: access to imagery is not the same as assured access. As Iranian missiles struck US facilities across the Gulf, Planet progressively restricted imagery before moving to managed access following a US government request for an indefinite withhold. Vantor’s existing restrictions similarly removed high-resolution coverage, while Washington subsequently persuaded the EU to delay some Copernicus imagery over the Gulf of Oman. Yet the blackout did not blind Iran. Tehran published imagery of strike damage that the Washington Post subsequently verified using largely European Sentinel-2 data. Instead, restrictions degraded visibility for journalists, analysts, humanitarian organisations, commodity traders - and critically - regional governments whose own territory was being attacked.

Commercial EO has sold customers on persistence, transparency, and increasingly decision advantage. Shutter control reveals a qualification: the ultimate sovereign may be the licensing state, not the paying customer. For governments, insurers, energy companies, and financial institutions, supplier nationality and regulatory exposure therefore become attributes of the data product itself. This changes procurement. Customers seeking mission-critical intelligence will increasingly demand contractual clarity over withholding, geographically and politically diversified suppliers, sovereign tasking arrangements, and ultimately, indigenous capacity. For EO companies, meanwhile, government restrictions risk degrading precisely the quality that makes commercial imagery strategically valuable: its credibility as an independent source of timely information. The emerging market distinction may therefore be less resolution versus revisit than availability versus assured availability.

WEAK LINKS

Our regular look at vulnerabilities and chokepoints that impact risk across the space enterprise – military, civil, and commercial.

China’s Commercial Space Industrial Surge

A new CSIS report, Blurred Orbits: Inside China’s Commercial Space Expansion, argues that the most consequential development in Chinese spacepower may be occurring not in orbit but on the ground. Since Beijing partially opened space activities to private capital in 2014, China’s nominally commercial ecosystem has expanded from fewer than a dozen startups to more than 600 firms. Central and provincial governments are simultaneously constructing launch sites, “aerospace cities,” industrial clusters, and satellite factories. Seventeen major facilities alone could eventually produce an estimated 4,100–5,000 satellites annually. Meanwhile, Guowang and Thousand Sails envisage constellations of 12,992 and 15,000 satellites respectively. Yet “commercial” is a misleading Western category. China’s ecosystem combines private capital and entrepreneurial competition with state direction, subsidies, military-civil fusion, and national strategic objectives. Significant weaknesses remain, including uncertain profitability, launch bottlenecks, immature reusable launch capabilities, and potentially substantial industrial overcapacity - but Beijing appears prepared to tolerate inefficiency in exchange for scale, technological learning, and strategic capacity.

The issue is not simply that China might build a competitor to Starlink. It is that Beijing is constructing mobilisable space industrial depth. Factories, launch infrastructure, supply chains, and skilled labour potentially provide the capacity to replace wartime losses, rapidly expand constellations, and export vertically integrated space architectures abroad. In a prolonged conflict, therefore, the decisive metric may become less the number or sophistication of satellites possessed on Day One than how quickly each side can manufacture, launch, replace, and adapt them on Day 100 or Day 1,000. That shifts spacepower increasingly from exquisite capabilities toward industrial endurance.

SPACE THINK

AstroAnalytica’s spotlight on emerging space doctrine, spacepower theory, and wider space strategic thinking that applies to all stakeholders across the space sector.

U.S. Space Command’s Space Warfighting Environment 2040 offers a strikingly different picture of future space warfare from the relatively static orbital environment around which much contemporary doctrine was built. By 2040, USSPACECOM expects proliferated dual-use constellations able to absorb losses and regenerate; routine servicing, refuelling, and manoeuvre; increasingly autonomous operations; contested electromagnetic and cyber environments; quantum-enabled changes to communications, sensing and timing; and military activity extending towards cislunar space. Crucially, it identifies fixed terrestrial infrastructure - ground stations, gateways, and command facilities - as an increasingly obvious vulnerability. The operational response is space manoeuvre warfare: architectures that can move, disperse, reconstitute, and continue generating effects while under persistent attack. Space is therefore treated not simply as an enabling service but as a battlespace whose control directly conditions Joint Force effectiveness.

The deeper point is that the traditional distinction between satellite and space architecture is becoming strategically meaningless. Future spacepower will reside in an adaptive system stretching from terrestrial infrastructure through proliferated constellations and manoeuvrable spacecraft to cislunar space - and increasingly incorporating commercial and allied capabilities. This also changes the problem of space control. Destroying individual satellites may accomplish little against architectures designed to regenerate. The strategic contest therefore shifts towards attacking - or defending - the connective tissue that allows the system to sense, decide, manoeuvre, replenish, and continue fighting. Resilience becomes less a property of spacecraft than an attribute of the entire warfighting architecture.

ON OUR RADAR

Other significant developments we have been tracking recently:

• Poland is experiencing record levels of GNSS jamming and spoofing, affecting smartphones, drones, shipping, and aviation on roughly two-thirds of days in August, with Polish experts linking the interference primarily to expanded Russian electronic-warfare systems in Kaliningrad capable of disrupting signals hundreds of kilometres beyond Russian territory.

• Deloitte argues that a sustained lunar presence is beginning to shift from exploration programme to potential economic system, requiring transportation, power, communications/navigation, mobility, construction, and life-support infrastructure that could unlock national-security, data, resource, and in-space manufacturing markets, with its accelerated scenario estimating a cumulative $566 billion lunar economy through 2050.

• African spacepower is shifting from prestige towards sovereignty: 18 African states have now launched satellites and more than 21 operate space programmes, increasingly seeking indigenous Earth-observation, communications, and data capabilities to reduce dependence on Western providers, creating both commercial opportunities for Europe and a geopolitical contest for influence with China and Russia.

• Bulgarian security services located and neutralised a powerful vehicle-mounted GPS jammer in Sofia capable of disrupting satellite navigation across the capital, including signals used by Sofia Airport and overflying aircraft, demonstrating how relatively localised terrestrial electronic-warfare systems can threaten the PNT infrastructure underpinning aviation and other critical services.

• China’s successful recoveries of two orbital-class rocket boosters, including LandSpace’s Zhuque-3, bring Beijing significantly closer to operational reusable launch, potentially enabling cheaper and more frequent deployment and wartime replenishment of ISR, communications, and navigation satellites and thereby making the PLA’s space-enabled “kill chain” considerably more resilient to disruption or attrition.

FROM ASTROANALYTICA

Orbital Foresight is produced by AstroAnalytica, a London-based geopolitical space intelligence firm focused on space power, strategic competition, and the future of the orbital economy.

We help governments, investors, defence organisations, and industry leaders understand how developments in space are reshaping power, risk, and opportunity.

To discuss strategic advisory support, research projects, speaking engagements, or partnerships, write to us at contact@astroanalytica.com.

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ORBITAL REFLECTION

For Britain, space should now be treated as a full war-fighting domain. Responsibility is currently scattered across departments and agencies. No single minister owns the whole picture. Within the Ministry of Defence, space remains under the RAF umbrella.

That is no longer sufficient. A dedicated Space Command should be established as a separate service, led by a four-star officer reporting directly to the chief of the defence staff. Space is no longer a specialist niche. It underpins everything. Britain once understood this. Today we are increasingly viewed as a tier-three space power, watching while others shape the battlefield overhead.

This must change. It will require political will, investment and people, beginning with a plan to fill the 5,000 postgraduate vacancies currently unfilled across the UK space sector.

Space is no longer the final frontier. It is a domain of warfare and the likely opening theatre of war. Time to look up.

Tobias Ellwood, Ten Steps to Prevent World War Three, 2026, p. 282.

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Orbital Foresight is taking a break for the whole of August and will resume publication in September on a new bi-monthly schedule.

LEAD ANALYSIS

Over the past few months, something important has happened in British defence thinking about space. Quietly, but unmistakably, the UK has undergone a conceptual shift. Space is no longer treated simply as a useful supporting utility - a source of communications, navigation, and imagery - but as critical national infrastructure, a contested operational domain, and an increasingly central component of modern warfare.

The evidence is now difficult to ignore.

The 2026 National Risk Register identifies four distinct space-related national risks: disruption of space-based services, loss of Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT), severe space weather, and deliberate disruption of UK space systems. In doing so, it recognises that British society, critical national infrastructure, finance, transport, communications, emergency services, and defence all depend upon vulnerable space systems.

The Ministry of Defence’s 2026 Defence Investment Plan goes further still. It describes space as “central to warfighting,” characterises it as a contested domain, commits to developing offensive and defensive space control capabilities, and announces the creation of up to six space squadrons alongside a new Space Systems Group and an Integrated Air, Space, and Missile Defence architecture.

Taken together, these documents demonstrate that the UK has now largely completed the conceptual transition from treating space as a supporting utility to recognising it as critical national infrastructure and a contested warfighting domain. That is genuine progress, but it is also only the beginning.

In earlier essays, Beyond Space Domain Awareness and Britain Needs Strategic Optionality in Space, I argued that Britain risked confusing awareness with control and access with sovereignty. The former questioned whether the UK’s emerging space posture was overly focused on observing the space environment rather than developing the means to influence events within it. The latter argued that privileged access to American capabilities, valuable though it undoubtedly is, should never be mistaken for sovereign agency. Strategic optionality requires more than access to another country’s systems; it requires the ability to act independently when circumstances demand it.

Recent government publications suggest these arguments are beginning to find echoes within official thinking. The language of “space control,” “protection,” “deterrence,” and “resilience” now appears across government publications. The recently published cross-government Space Domain Awareness requirements are themselves revealing. They explicitly state that Space Domain Awareness exists to provide decision-quality information that supports the mitigation of adversary space effects and the integration of allied space effects into multi-domain operations. Even here, however, awareness is correctly presented as an enabler rather than an end in itself.

The policy architecture is therefore becoming increasingly coherent, but the problem is that policy alone does not generate military capability. As the late Colin S. Gray used to say, policy without budget and technology is merely poetry, and applied to British military space, it captures the present moment almost perfectly.

Britain has developed an emerging theory of the problem. It increasingly understands why space matters, where the vulnerabilities lie, and what kinds of organisations may ultimately be required to address them. The establishment of UK Space Command, the National Space Operations Centre, the proposed space squadrons, and the new acquisition structures all point towards an institutional transition that is now underway, yet the capability transition remains incomplete.

The Defence Investment Plan contains impressive headline figures, but much of the spending remains aggregated, projected, or dependent upon future spending decisions. Publicly available information does not yet reveal a clearly ring-fenced programme for space control itself, as distinct from satellite communications, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, or broader space infrastructure. Nor does it yet demonstrate how future squadrons will be equipped, exercised, or sustained.

Technology presents a similar picture. Britain possesses valuable capabilities: SKYNET, an increasingly capable National Space Operations Centre, improving Space Domain Awareness, sovereign PNT resilience initiatives such as the National Timing Centre and eLoran, and world-class commercial and scientific expertise. These are significant foundations, but they are not yet an operational space-control architecture.

What remains publicly absent is evidence of a fully integrated system capable of moving from detection to attribution, to decision, to authorised action, to assessment of effects under contested conditions. In military terms, Britain has many of the building blocks, but not yet the fully assembled capability.

This should not be interpreted as criticism of the men and women building Britain’s military space enterprise. On the contrary, institutions require time to mature, doctrine must be written, operators must be trained, and organisations must develop their own culture, tactics, and experience. Moreover, technology must be tested and operational concepts exercised, while some capabilities will, quite properly, remain classified.

Nor should anyone expect Britain to replicate the United States’ Space Force or National Reconnaissance Office, or wider American space architecture - never a realistic objective. The more important question is whether Britain is building sufficient sovereign capability to preserve strategic optionality, something that remains unresolved.

The danger is not that the government has failed to recognise the strategic importance of space. The National Risk Register and Defence Investment Plan demonstrate that it clearly has. Rather, the risk is that policy begins to outpace implementation, that the language of space control advances more rapidly than the forces, technology, delegated authorities, and operational concepts required to deliver it.

National security strategy is ultimately judged not by what it intends, but by what it enables. Britain has found the right vocabulary, and it is beginning to build the right institutions. But it has not yet demonstrated a commensurate, ring-fenced budget, mature operational concepts, or an integrated technology stack capable of turning ambitious space policy into dependable and sustainable military effect.

The UK has crossed the conceptual threshold into treating space as a contested warfighting domain. The far more difficult task now begins: transforming that understanding into credible capability. Only then will Britain be able to say that it possesses not merely a theory of space control, but the practical means to exercise it.

This analysis is also available on the AstroAnalytica website.

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DECISION SIGNALS

Recent developments that indicate significant strategic changes in the space domain with an impact on government policies, investment choices, and business decisions:

1. Ukraine Advances Sovereign LEO Constellation to Reduce Starlink Dependence

Ukrainian satellite communications company Stetman has unveiled plans for a $1.1 billion sovereign low-Earth orbit (LEO) constellation comprising 360 satellites operating at an altitude of 550 km. Developed through a joint venture with Danish satellite manufacturer GomSpace, the UASAT programme aims to provide secure satellite communications under the direct control of the Ukrainian government and armed forces, reducing dependence on foreign-operated systems such as SpaceX’s Starlink. The first 120 satellites are scheduled for launch aboard SpaceX vehicles in 2027, with full deployment targeted by 2030. The project also envisages establishing a satellite manufacturing facility in Ukraine. The announcement comes as Russia continues development of its competing Rassvet constellation, led by Bureau 1440, which plans to deploy 292 operational satellites by 2030 as part of a wider 383-satellite architecture funded through Moscow’s national Data Economy programme.

Ukraine’s proposal highlights an increasingly important strategic reality: states that have relied heavily on commercial satellite communications during conflict are now seeking sovereign operational control over those capabilities. Starlink has proved transformational for Ukraine, but it has also exposed the strategic risks inherent in depending upon a foreign commercial provider whose services ultimately remain subject to external political, commercial, and legal considerations. More broadly, Ukraine and Russia are demonstrating that sovereign LEO communications constellations are becoming a core component of national resilience and military effectiveness. For Europe, the lesson extends well beyond Ukraine. The future debate is no longer simply about access to commercial space services, but about strategic optionality - the ability of states to retain assured communications and operational freedom under contested conditions. As more countries pursue indigenous constellations, sovereignty, resilience, and control are likely to become defining themes of the next phase of military space competition.

2. President Zelensky Alleges Russian Satellite Intelligence Supports Iranian Strikes

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Russia of providing Iran with satellite intelligence used to target U.S. military facilities in the Gulf. According to Zelensky, Russian satellites conducted surveillance of Gulf states and U.S. bases throughout July, with imagery allegedly passed to Iran both before attacks to support targeting and afterwards for battle damage assessment. He stated that Ukraine would share evidence with Washington and cited four U.S. military air bases in Bahrain, Jordan, and Kuwait that were reportedly under Russian satellite observation on 19 to 20 July 2026. The allegations build on earlier CBS reporting, which cited a senior U.S. official saying Russia had supplied intelligence on U.S. positions to Iran during the conflict. If substantiated, the claims would represent a significant expansion of military cooperation between Moscow and Tehran beyond arms transfers and technical assistance into operational intelligence support. Russia has not publicly responded to the specific allegations at the time of writing.

Whether or not every element of Zelensky's claim is ultimately verified, the episode illustrates an increasingly important trend in contemporary geopolitics and warfare: commercial and military space-based intelligence is becoming an operational enabler that can be transferred between states almost as readily as weapons or ammunition. Satellite imagery is no longer simply a strategic intelligence asset; it is becoming a shared battlefield resource capable of supporting targeting, strike planning, and battle damage assessment across multiple theatres. This has profound implications for allied force protection. Future military planners may need to assume that adversaries can draw upon a distributed ecosystem of sovereign, commercial, and partner-provided space capabilities rather than relying solely on their own national assets. More broadly, the allegations reinforce a central theme emerging across contemporary conflict: space is no longer merely a supporting domain but an active arena of coalition warfare, where intelligence sharing, commercial satellite services, and space infrastructure are increasingly shaping events on the ground.

3. Sweden Warns Launch Capacity Is Becoming a Strategic Bottleneck

Sweden’s military space ambitions are being constrained not by satellite technology, but by limited access to launch. Rear Adm. Anders Sundeman, Chief of Space for the Swedish Armed Forces, has warned that growing demand for U.S. and European launch services is creating a bottleneck that could delay the deployment of urgently needed national space capabilities. Sweden accelerated the launch of its first military satellite by four years because of the deteriorating European security environment and plans to expand to around 10 military satellites, including synthetic aperture radar (SAR) spacecraft built by Finland’s ICEYE. However, Sundeman cautioned that launch availability has become a strategic concern as military and commercial customers compete for finite launch capacity. Sweden is therefore investing heavily in developing Esrange into mainland Europe’s first orbital launch site, with the first orbital mission expected in 2028 aboard Firefly Aerospace’s Alpha rocket. Sundeman also highlighted Russia’s escalating GPS jamming over the Baltic region and emphasised that future resilience will depend on larger constellations and close cooperation with allies rather than offensive counterspace capabilities.

The report highlights a frequently overlooked aspect of space power: launch capacity is itself a strategic capability. As more countries seek sovereign satellites for defence, intelligence, and communications, access to orbit is becoming a scarce resource rather than a routine commercial service. Europe's long-standing dependence on a limited number of launch providers increasingly risks becoming a strategic vulnerability, particularly during crises when launch demand could surge. Sweden's push to establish sovereign launch capability at Esrange reflects a broader shift in European thinking, from treating launch as a commercial activity to recognising it as part of national and allied resilience. More broadly, the ability to design, manufacture, launch, replenish, and sustain satellites is emerging as an integrated industrial ecosystem. Sovereignty in space will therefore be determined not only by who owns satellites in orbit, but also by who can place replacements into orbit quickly enough to sustain operations during prolonged strategic competition or conflict.

WEAK LINKS

Our regular look at vulnerabilities and chokepoints that impact risk across the space enterprise – military, civil, and commercial.

EU Agrees to Delay Copernicus Imagery Over Gulf at U.S. Request

The European Union has approved a U.S. request to delay the public release of Copernicus Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 imagery covering the Gulf of Oman and the Strait of Hormuz by 24 hours. The decision, adopted by the Council of the European Union on 13 July 2026, follows a U.S. request made in May and comes amid renewed fighting between the United States and Iran. The restriction applies to imagery of key shipping lanes and is intended to prevent states or non-state actors from exploiting near-real-time satellite data in ways that could threaten the interests of the EU, its member states, or their allies. The move follows earlier decisions by several U.S. commercial imagery providers, including Planet Labs, to delay or restrict access to imagery of the conflict region after concerns that openly available imagery could be used for targeting and battle damage assessment. While the Copernicus restriction is less severe than the commercial embargoes, introducing a 24-hour delay rather than withholding imagery altogether, it nevertheless represents a notable departure from the programme’s longstanding commitment to free and immediate access to Earth observation data.

The decision highlights an increasingly important tension at the heart of the modern space economy: the collision between open data and operational security. For decades, Copernicus has been held up as the global benchmark for freely accessible Earth observation, enabling scientific research, humanitarian response, and open-source intelligence. Yet modern conflicts have demonstrated that the same imagery which promotes transparency can also support military operations, target development, and battle damage assessment. The result is a growing recognition that Earth observation is no longer simply a civil or commercial capability but part of the strategic battlespace. More broadly, the episode suggests that governments are beginning to treat data latency as a policy instrument. Rather than permanently restricting access, introducing carefully calibrated delays seeks to preserve the long-term benefits of open data while reducing its immediate tactical utility. If this approach becomes more common, future conflicts may be characterised not only by competition over satellites themselves, but by competition over who controls the timing, dissemination, and governance of the data they produce.

SPACE THINK

AstroAnalytica’s spotlight on emerging space doctrine, spacepower theory, and wider space strategic thinking that applies to all stakeholders across the space sector.

Leaked Documents Reveal New Details of Russia’s Expanding ASAT Programme

An investigation by UNITED24 Media, based on internal Russian defence documents reportedly obtained by the Cyber Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, has shed new light on the evolution of Russia’s Nudol anti-satellite (ASAT) missile programme. The documents indicate that Russia continues to invest heavily in the mobile Nudol system while simultaneously developing a closely related interceptor, designated 102A6, under a previously undisclosed programme known as Svyatogor. The investigation suggests the two missiles share numerous components, production lines, and suppliers, potentially indicating complementary mobile and fixed interceptor architectures. The leaked material also identifies an extensive defence-industrial supply chain centred on Almaz-Antey and Novator Design Bureau, while revealing that production still relies on imported raw materials, including Swiss-produced cellulose acetate and Chinese-manufactured chemical stabilisers, despite sanctions. The documents further indicate that Russia plans to continue missile deliveries through at least 2026, while seeking to replace foreign materials with domestic alternatives. Although the authenticity of the leaked documents cannot be independently verified, the investigation provides one of the most detailed public insights to date into the industrial ecosystem underpinning Russia’s counterspace capabilities.

The significance of this investigation lies less in confirming that Russia possesses an ASAT capability, which has been publicly demonstrated since the 2021 Kosmos-1408 intercept, than in illuminating the industrial depth and strategic persistence behind its counterspace programme. If the documents are authentic, they suggest Russia is not treating counterspace as a niche capability but as an enduring element of its integrated air, missile, and space defence architecture. Equally important is what the supply chain reveals. Despite years of sanctions, Russia continues to depend upon foreign materials for key missile components, highlighting both the resilience and remaining vulnerabilities of its defence-industrial base. More broadly, the report reinforces an emerging reality: future military competition in space will be shaped not only by satellites in orbit, but by the terrestrial industrial ecosystems capable of designing, producing, and sustaining offensive and defensive counterspace systems. For Western governments, understanding and disrupting those supply chains may ultimately prove as strategically important as developing new space capabilities themselves.

ON OUR RADAR

Other significant developments we have been tracking recently:

• Germany is considering constructing its first sovereign orbital launch site in the North Sea, reflecting Berlin's growing recognition that independent access to space is becoming a strategic requirement for national security, resilience, and European defence autonomy.

• China's classified Shijian-31 satellite is operating in an unprecedented Molniya-type orbit that enables it to systematically survey the entire geostationary belt, signalling an innovative new approach to space situational awareness and potentially future satellite inspection or counterspace operations.

• Poland has committed €656 million (£560 million) to Europe's IRIS² secure satellite communications constellation, funding 12 national satellites and a Warsaw gateway station, as part of a broader strategy to strengthen sovereign and European secure communications, resilience, and defence autonomy.

• Northrop Grumman's new Mission Robotic Vehicle (MRV), designed for satellite servicing and life extension, highlights the inherently dual-use nature of on-orbit robotics, with experts noting its robotic arms could also form the basis of future offensive counterspace capabilities against adversary satellites if required by government customers.

• France's new Space Command headquarters in Toulouse is treating space as an active warfighting domain, expanding military satellite operations, defensive "patroller" satellites, rapid launch capabilities, and allied cooperation to protect orbital assets against increasingly sophisticated Russian and Chinese counterspace threats.

FROM ASTROANALYTICA

Orbital Foresight is produced by AstroAnalytica, a London-based geopolitical space intelligence firm focused on space power, strategic competition, and the future of the orbital economy.

We help governments, investors, defence organisations, and industry leaders understand how developments in space are reshaping power, risk, and opportunity.

To discuss strategic advisory support, research projects, speaking engagements, or partnerships, write to us at contact@astroanalytica.com.

Learn more about AstroAnalytica's research, analysis, and advisory services:

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ORBITAL REFLECTION

This is not science fiction. The world’s largest IPO is predicated on the extraterrestrial extraction of the solar system’s resources. Asteroid mining companies are conducting active testing and targeting a near-Earth asteroid for commercial extraction. The platinum metals market, worth hundreds of billions dollars annually, could face its first extraterrestrial competitor within a decade. When that ingot arrives at a real port, the customs authorities will need an answer. Trade policy does not currently have one.

George Riddell and Sam Lowe, Frontiers of Trade: Space, Asteroids & Rules of Origin, Flint Global, 16 July 2026.

Need to know more? AstroAnalytica provides bespoke decision support amidst growing space sector complexity and risk, along with strategic forecasting and advisory services for government, defence, investment, and industry clients.

LEAD ANALYSIS

An Inadvertent Revelation

A recent House of Commons Defence Committee hearing exposed a much deeper strategic question on British national security space than perhaps was intended [Q146-Q153]. Labour MP Fred Thomas asked witnesses what appeared to be a straightforward question: should Britain possess sovereign Earth observation capabilities independent of the United States? The answers from Louise Sandher-Jones, MP, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Armed Forces, and Brigadier Jeremy Lamb, Head of Military Euro-Atlantic Security at the Ministry of Defence, were thoughtful, measured, and entirely understandable. Both emphasised the value of allied cooperation, burden-sharing, and Britain’s privileged access to world-leading American space capabilities.

The timing of this exchange is particularly striking. Only weeks earlier, the Ministry of Defence’s Defence Investment Plan rightly recognised space as central to the conduct of modern warfare and a critical enabler across every domain (pp.48-49). Yet if that assessment is accepted, and it should be, the question of sovereign access to space capabilities becomes more, not less, important. The more central space becomes to national defence, the greater the strategic consequences of relying principally upon capabilities built, owned, tasked, and prioritised by others.

Yet the exchange also revealed an institutional assumption that has shaped much of British defence thinking on space for decades. Implicit in the responses was the view that because Britain enjoys access to unparalleled American intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities, the fundamental strategic problem has largely been solved. If the United States can provide exquisite Earth observation data, why should Britain seek to replicate it?

That assumption deserves closer scrutiny. Not because the United States is anything other than Britain’s closest and most capable ally, nor because the transatlantic relationship is in long-term doubt, but because access to another country’s capabilities is not the same as possessing agency over one’s own. The distinction may appear subtle, but in an era of intensifying geopolitical competition, it is becoming increasingly consequential. It is, perhaps, the most important national security space policy debate Britain is not yet having.

Britain’s Privileged Access

Britain enjoys unparalleled access to American military space capabilities. Through the UK-US intelligence relationship and the Five Eyes partnership, British decision-makers benefit from some of the most sophisticated Earth observation, signals intelligence, missile warning, and geospatial intelligence available anywhere in the world. This is an extraordinary strategic advantage and one that successive governments have been right to value.

But access is not the same as sovereignty. Nor is it synonymous with strategic freedom of action.

Access ultimately depends upon American priorities, tasking, political decisions, and operational capacity. Even the closest of allies cannot assume that their requirements will always align perfectly, particularly during simultaneous crises or when finite intelligence assets are being prioritised across multiple theatres. Agency, by contrast, means Britain retains the ability to determine what intelligence is collected, when it is collected, how it is processed and analysed, and how it is integrated into British military and political decision-making. These are fundamentally different concepts.

It’s Not Our Rolls-Royce

A simple analogy illustrates the point. The United States has, in effect, handed Britain the keys to its Rolls-Royce. That is an extraordinary privilege, and one that no sensible strategist would wish to diminish. Yet Britain should never confuse driving someone else’s Rolls-Royce with owning its own vehicle. The strategic question is not whether America possesses the world’s finest car. It plainly does. The question is what happens when America needs to drive it somewhere else. At that point, Britain will discover that having a reliable Volvo in its own garage may prove strategically more valuable than temporary access to someone else’s Rolls-Royce.

The Defence Committee exchange hints at a deeper problem than simple dependence upon American capabilities. It suggests that Britain may have become accustomed to measuring every prospective sovereign capability against the world’s most sophisticated national reconnaissance architecture. If that is the benchmark, the conclusion is almost inevitable: anything Britain develops for itself will appear inherently inferior.

Yet this is precisely the wrong comparison.

Agency, Not Capability Absolutism

The question should never be whether Britain can replicate the capabilities of the United States’ National Reconnaissance Office. It cannot, and nor should it try. The relevant strategic question is far simpler: what sovereign capabilities does Britain require to preserve its own freedom of political and military action?

The danger lies in what might be termed capability absolutism - the implicit belief that unless a capability approaches the performance of the world’s best, it is not worth possessing at all. Throughout history, however, commanders have often preferred capabilities that were available, controllable, resilient, and sufficiently capable over exquisite systems that were scarce, prohibitively expensive, or unavailable when most needed. In strategy, “good enough” is frequently more valuable than “perfect,” especially if it remains under one’s own control. […]

The complete version of this analysis is available on the AstroAnalytica website.

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DECISION SIGNALS

Recent developments that indicate significant strategic changes in the space domain with an impact on government policies, investment choices, and business decisions:

1. More Countries Seek to Build Starlink Alternatives in the Name of Sovereignty

Germany is developing a sovereign military LEO communications constellation under its SATCOMBw4 programme. Plans include around 200 communications satellites, integrated with a much larger reconnaissance architecture, to ensure secure military communications and reduce dependence on commercial providers. South Korea has approved development of a national “K-Starlink” constellation by 2035, potentially comprising 128–512 satellites. The system is intended to provide sovereign, low-latency communications for both civilian resilience and military operations while reducing reliance on foreign networks. Meanwhile, Russia is pressing ahead with Rassvet, a Starlink analogue developed by Bureau 1440, with 318 satellites planned by 2028. Driven by lessons from the war in Ukraine, the constellation is intended to support military communications, drone operations, and secure national connectivity independent of Western infrastructure.

Starlink has transformed LEO SATCOM from a commercial success into a strategic benchmark. Rather than relying indefinitely on SpaceX, states across the geopolitical spectrum, including US allies such as Germany and South Korea as well as adversaries like Russia, are investing in sovereign constellations. The common driver is not necessarily distrust of Washington, but recognition that communications underpin military command and control, AI-enabled operations, autonomous systems, and national resilience. Governments increasingly view dependence on any foreign-owned commercial network, however capable, as a strategic vulnerability. The emerging model is therefore likely to be one of interoperable sovereign constellations, not reliance on a single global provider. For Britain, this raises a fundamental strategic question: is access to Starlink sufficient, or should the UK also pursue sovereign LEO SATCOM as an essential component of long-term strategic autonomy?

2. Russia and China Targeting Starlink

A joint investigation by The Insider, Der Spiegel, and Le Monde, based on leaked documents from previously undisclosed Russia–China military forums, alleges that Moscow and Beijing have established a structured programme to develop capabilities to counter Starlink. The documents reportedly describe Chinese analyses of Starlink’s battlefield performance in Ukraine and discussions covering jamming, spoofing, cyber operations, and kinetic counterspace options. The investigation also suggests that Starlink has become a focal point of broader Russo-Chinese military cooperation spanning space, air, and missile defence, AI-enabled drones, and other advanced technologies.

The significance extends well beyond Starlink itself. Again, the constellation has become the de facto benchmark for resilient military communications, making it both strategically indispensable and an increasingly attractive target. This reinforces a broader trend already visible elsewhere: governments are simultaneously seeking their own sovereign LEO SATCOM constellations while investing in capabilities to disrupt those of potential adversaries. Space competition is therefore evolving from a race to deploy communications networks into a contest over assuring one’s own access while denying an opponent’s. For military planners, resilience can no longer be measured solely by constellation size or bandwidth. It increasingly depends on the ability to survive electronic warfare, cyberattack, and kinetic threats in an increasingly contested orbital environment. The future of LEO SATCOM will be determined as much by its survivability as by its connectivity.

3. Reusable Launch Goes Global

China and Japan have each achieved significant milestones in reusable launch technology. China successfully recovered the first stage of its new Long March 10B after its maiden orbital flight, using an innovative sea-based net recovery system rather than powered vertical landing. The approach reduces booster weight while preserving payload capacity and signals Beijing’s determination to lower launch costs at scale. Meanwhile, Japan’s JAXA successfully flew and landed its RV-X reusable rocket prototype during a 40-second vertical take-off and landing test. Although modest in scale, the demonstration marks Japan’s first step towards reusable orbital launch systems and feeds into future programmes such as CALLISTO, developed with France and Germany.

SpaceX no longer enjoys a monopoly on reusable launch technology. While neither China nor Japan is close to matching Falcon 9’s operational tempo or Starship’s ambitions, both recognise that reusability is becoming a prerequisite for competitive access to space. The strategic significance extends beyond lower launch costs. Reusable rockets enable higher launch cadence, more responsive space operations, and the sustained deployment of large satellite constellations during both peacetime and conflict. China, in particular, appears willing to pursue a different engineering path rather than simply replicating SpaceX’s architecture, highlighting that there may be multiple viable approaches to rapid, low-cost launch. The emerging competition is therefore shifting from whether launch systems should be reusable to how they can best deliver strategic, industrial, and military advantage.

WEAK LINKS

Our regular look at vulnerabilities and chokepoints that impact risk across the space enterprise – military, civil, and commercial.

Russia’s Logic of Space Denial

A GIS Reports analysis argues that Russia is no longer trying to match the United States or China satellite for satellite. Constrained by sanctions, industrial weakness, and a shrinking commercial space base, Moscow is instead pursuing asymmetric space denial: jamming, cyberattacks, spoofing, direct-ascent missiles, and co-orbital systems intended to disrupt the space infrastructure upon which technologically superior adversaries depend. Ukraine has reinforced this approach. Russia has demonstrated an ability to interfere with satellite communications and navigation, but Starlink’s distributed architecture has proved far harder to suppress than small numbers of exquisite military satellites. Moscow is therefore shifting towards attacks on user terminals, ground infrastructure, service chains, and network software, while developing its own resilient LEO communications constellation, Rassvet (see Decision Signal above). The report also highlights concerns over a possible Russian nuclear counterspace capability designed less for orbital dominance than for coercive leverage.

Russia’s relative weakness in space may make it more dangerous, not less. With fewer orbital assets and commercial dependencies of its own, Moscow may perceive greater freedom to impose costs on space-dependent adversaries. Western resilience, therefore, requires more than proliferated constellations: it demands hardened ground segments, diversified communications, cyber defence, electronic protection, and the ability to operate through disruption. Russia’s objective is not to control orbit, but to ensure that its opponents cannot use it safely or confidently.

SPACE THINK

AstroAnalytica’s spotlight on emerging space doctrine, spacepower theory, and wider space strategic thinking that applies to all stakeholders across the space sector.

Europe’s ‘Falcon’ Moment?

A new analysis from Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center argues that Europe must create the conditions for its own “SpaceX moment” if it is to remain competitive in the global space economy. Rather than relying on subsidies alone, the report recommends five priorities: aggregate European demand, reform procurement around commercial services, expand access to growth capital, reduce regulatory barriers, and foster an entrepreneurial ecosystem capable of scaling high-risk, high-growth space companies. The central argument is that Europe’s challenge is less a shortage of technology than an innovation ecosystem that struggles to turn promising startups into globally competitive firms.

Europe increasingly recognises that strategic autonomy depends not only on sovereign capabilities, but also on sovereign industrial capacity. SpaceX’s success was not simply the product of technological ingenuity; it emerged from a supportive ecosystem combining government demand, private capital, and a regulatory environment that rewarded innovation. Europe is now asking whether it can replicate those conditions. For the UK, this debate carries particular significance. Outside the EU but deeply integrated with European defence and space markets, Britain faces a strategic choice: compete independently, integrate selectively with European initiatives, or position itself as a bridge between European and American ecosystems. More broadly, the report reflects a growing consensus that the future space competition will be won as much by institutions, procurement, and capital markets as by engineering excellence alone.

ON OUR RADAR

Other significant developments we have been tracking recently:

• A newly identified cloud of previously undetected debris in geostationary orbit (GEO) - where many of the world's most valuable communications, weather, and military satellites operate - highlights that the space debris challenge is not confined to LEO and reinforces the need for improved space domain awareness, debris tracking, and active orbital stewardship across all orbital regimes.

• Rheinmetall and Space Norway have signed an MoU to integrate complementary X-band and C-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite capabilities into a joint maritime surveillance architecture, strengthening persistent monitoring of the Arctic, North Atlantic, and other strategically important maritime regions while advancing European sovereign space and defence capabilities.

• The Pentagon and Silicon Valley are accelerating investment in satellites that beam solar power to terrestrial forces or other spacecraft, as maturing arrays, power-transmission technologies, and cheaper launch make orbital energy increasingly plausible for contested logistics, resilient military operations, and power-hungry space-based AI infrastructure.

• China is using tailored space cooperation, including satellites, launches, BeiDou integration, training and lunar diplomacy, to deepen influence across the Middle East, while regional powers such as Egypt, Iran, and the UAE actively leverage Beijing’s technology to advance development and strategic autonomy without necessarily abandoning their US partnerships.

• Five European defence companies, including Airbus, MBDA Deutschland, Safran, Thales, and Destinus, have formed the Bliksem EXO consortium to develop Europe's first sovereign exo-atmospheric hit-to-kill interceptor, aiming for an in-space test in 2027 to strengthen NATO-compatible upper-layer ballistic missile defence against advanced threats such as Russia's Oreshnik missile.

FROM ASTROANALYTICA

Orbital Foresight is produced by AstroAnalytica, a London-based geopolitical space intelligence firm focused on space power, strategic competition, and the future of the orbital economy.

We help governments, investors, defence organisations, and industry leaders understand how developments in space are reshaping power, risk, and opportunity.

To discuss strategic advisory support, research projects, speaking engagements, or partnerships, write to us at contact@astroanalytica.com.

Learn more about AstroAnalytica's research, analysis, and advisory services:

VISIT ASTROANALYTICA

ORBITAL REFLECTION

Satellites are invisible. Their signals are imperceptible. Their failure modes are silent and ambiguous: a GPS receiver that drifts is indistinguishable, to the user, from a GPS receiver that has been spoofed. The infrastructure is so deeply embedded in the substrate of daily life that its absence would be experienced as a simultaneous, unexplained degradation of everything: transport, finance, communications, energy distribution, emergency response, and the capacity of governments to coordinate any coherent action at all.

Paul Szymanski and Calogero Bonasia, “The Invisible War: Anatomy of Orbital Conflict and the Institutional Paralysis at its Heart,” in U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, July 2026.

Need to know more? AstroAnalytica provides bespoke decision support amidst growing space sector complexity and risk, along with strategic forecasting and advisory services for government, defence, investment, and industry clients.

LEAD ANALYSIS

I. Britain Has Crossed an Intellectual Rubicon

After a great deal of politically consequential drama, the British government has finally published its long-awaited and overdue Defence Investment Plan (DIP), the document that details how the 2025 Strategic Defence Review (SDR) is to be equipped and funded. Even before the DIP was published, much ink has been spilled arguing about the merits or demerits of particular technologies, such as drones, over other technologies, including legacy systems. Moreover, the debate has been compounded by the fact that the budget for the DIP, allocated by the Treasury, is far less than what was officially requested to fully fund the investment plan over the coming years.

This analysis does not seek to wade into this, often fierce, debate, except insofar as it applies to space – a topic that is curiously absent from the political fray. I say curiously because space is at the heart of the DIP’s thesis for autonomous and uncrewed systems on land, at sea, and in the air (as well as the digital command and control network that forms the backbone for operations in all the domains), to the extent that the document argues, correctly, that space is “the central nervous system of modern, high-intensity warfare.” (p. 48)

Space has long been an important part of the way British forces operate and fight. Since at least the late 1980s to the early 2000s space has supported UK military operations by complementing command and control with satellite communications, positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) for synchronizing operations and precision strike, and space-based intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) for targeting and battle damage assessments (BDA). Space was a “nice to have” capability but UK forces were trained, equipped, and structured to ultimately fight without it. In the 2000s until the late 2010s military space operations evolved, thanks to the wider digitisation of the forces, from a support function to an enabler, whereby particular operations and missions could not be undertaken without space, or at the very least, could only be undertaken at tremendous cost in terms of resources and lives put at risk.

Enter the DIP and its acknowledgement that space is no longer merely an enabler. In that light, the DIP marks an intellectual Rubicon. Space is no longer presented as merely another military capability, or even as an enabling domain. It is now recognised as the operational fulcrum upon which the Integrated Force depends. Put another way, in an era of increasingly autonomous systems, AI-enabled command networks, and distributed operations, the loss of assured access to space would fundamentally degrade the effectiveness of the Integrated Force.

Consequently, the DIP rightly identifies space control as an essential military mission, yet it leaves the concept largely and unsatisfactorily undefined. Most of the capabilities discussed under the concept relate to space domain awareness (SDA): understanding what is happening in space. SDA is, without doubt, indispensable, but it is only the initial step in space control. Throughout military history, awareness has never been synonymous with control. Knowing the location of an enemy fleet does not confer command of the sea; detecting hostile aircraft does not establish air superiority. Likewise, awareness of space activities, however sophisticated, does not by itself provide the means to protect friendly systems, deny an adversary’s freedom of action, or prevail in a contested space environment. Space domain awareness is the intelligence function of space control. It is not space control itself.

II. Space Control: The Forgotten Concept

That conceptual gap between SDA and space control matters because recognising space as a contested warfighting domain inevitably raises a new question: if Britain now accepts that control of space is essential to military success, what exactly does ‘space control’ mean in operational terms? Outside of the United States and China, where conceptual and doctrinal debates on space control (what it is and how to achieve it) are common, most military space debates have, until very recently, revolved around space access (launch), satellites for communication, PNT, and ISR, and space domain awareness. In the UK (and Europe more broadly), space control, even within military circles, is often an esoteric subject known only to an initiated few and, until now, something long considered best left to the Americans.

For context, space control, broadly defined as the ability to secure freedom of action in space while denying the same to adversaries, is conceptually analogous to sea control as routinely conducted by navies, and air control as regularly carried out by air forces. The Royal Navy is, at least on paper, equipped, trained, and structured to exert control of the seas at a time and place of its choosing. Similarly, the Royal Air Force is equipped, trained, and structured to achieve air control (or, as it is often called, air superiority) as required.

The question facing Britain is therefore no longer whether space matters. The DIP has already answered that. The question is whether the United Kingdom possesses, or intends to develop, a coherent theory of how military forces secure and exercise space control. […]

The complete version of this analysis is available on the AstroAnalytica website.

READ IN FULL ON OUR WEBSITE

DECISION SIGNALS

Recent developments that indicate significant strategic changes in the space domain with an impact on government policies, investment choices, and business decisions:

1. EU Commissioner Warns European Space Systems are in the Crosshairs

The European Union is increasingly framing space as an operational warfighting domain rather than merely an economic or scientific one. At a European Parliament event on satellite security, Defence Commissioner Andrius Kubilius argued that future conflicts in space will closely resemble those on Earth, citing Russia’s cyberattack against the KA-SAT network at the outset of its invasion of Ukraine, widespread GNSS interference affecting European aviation, and the continent’s growing dependence on space infrastructure for communications, finance, and critical infrastructure.

The discussion also highlighted Europe’s determination to reduce strategic dependence on the United States and, in particular, SpaceX. Europe’s temporary reliance on Falcon launches and Starlink during delays to European launch systems is increasingly viewed as an unacceptable strategic vulnerability rather than a convenient commercial solution. Brussels is responding through the proposed European Space Act, stricter regulatory oversight of foreign providers, continued investment in IRIS², and renewed emphasis on sovereign launch capability, navigation through Galileo, and improved space domain awareness. However, institutional weaknesses remain, including fragmented governance and the requirement for unanimous political approval before responding to attacks on European space infrastructure.

Europe is moving beyond industrial space policy towards an explicitly strategic space posture. The fundamental competition is no longer simply over launch services or satellite constellations, but over sovereign control of the entire space infrastructure stack - from launch and communications to navigation, space domain awareness, resilience, and defensive capabilities. For industry, this signals growing demand for dual-use technologies, SDA, resilient architectures, and counterspace capabilities. For policymakers, the harder challenge is institutional: Europe may achieve technological autonomy before it achieves the political agility needed to employ it effectively in crisis.

2. Germany’s OHB Space Protests European Space Mega-Merger

Germany’s OHB Space has emerged as the most vocal critic of the proposed “Project Bromo” merger between the space businesses of Airbus, Leonardo, and Thales. While the three companies argue that consolidation is necessary to compete with SpaceX and other U.S. and Chinese rivals, OHB CEO Marco Fuchs contends that the merger would instead reduce competition in Europe’s institutional satellite market. He argues that SpaceX’s competitive strength lies primarily in launch and satellite communications, not in manufacturing satellites for European government programmes such as Galileo.

According to OHB, consolidation would leave European governments with fewer bidders for major public contracts, potentially increasing costs, reducing innovation, and creating a de facto European industrial monopoly. Although OHB acknowledges it could benefit commercially from becoming one of the few remaining competitors, the company has announced a €510 million capital raise to expand independently rather than pursue further consolidation. Fuchs also suggests the merger has a political dimension, serving as a symbolic Franco-German industrial project amid wider strains in bilateral defence cooperation.

This debate reflects a broader strategic dilemma confronting Europe: whether competitiveness is best achieved through industrial consolidation or through fostering a more dynamic and competitive ecosystem. Project Bromo risks treating SpaceX as a scale problem rather than a business model problem. SpaceX’s advantage derives from vertically integrated operations, rapid iteration, reusable launch, and commercial demand, not simply corporate size. Europe’s challenge is therefore institutional and structural as much as industrial. Creating larger incumbents may strengthen balance sheets, but without procurement reform, faster acquisition cycles, and greater commercial dynamism, consolidation alone is unlikely to close Europe’s widening competitive gap in space.

3. J.P. Morgan Bets On Convergence of Space, Defence, and AI

A new research note from J.P. Morgan argues that the next phase of the space economy will be driven less by exploration than by the convergence of artificial intelligence, defence, and resilient infrastructure. The report estimates the space-related defence market is currently worth up to $120 billion and could exceed $250 billion by 2035, underpinned by rising military spending and the growing recognition that space systems are now critical national infrastructure.

Rather than focusing solely on launch providers or satellite manufacturers, J.P. Morgan identifies the greatest long-term investment opportunities in enabling technologies: resilient communications, space domain awareness, in-space servicing, orbital logistics, AI-enabled software, and platforms that convert satellite data into operational decision-making. The report also highlights the increasing strategic importance of dual-use technologies, whose commercial revenues are reinforced by stable government demand. Emerging concepts such as orbital data centres and space-based solar power are identified as longer-term growth areas, although these remain speculative relative to today’s infrastructure markets.

The significance of this report lies less in its market forecasts than in its source. When one of the world’s largest investment banks reframes space as a strategic infrastructure sector rather than a niche aerospace industry, it signals that institutional capital is beginning to adopt the same geopolitical lens long used by defence planners. Investors are increasingly recognising that space is becoming a foundational layer of the global economy, where resilience, security, and AI-enabled services, not simply launch or satellite manufacturing, will generate the most durable value. This reinforces a broader trend: the commercial space economy is becoming inseparable from national security, suggesting that future winners will be those operating at the intersection of defence, critical infrastructure, and advanced software rather than traditional aerospace alone.

WEAK LINKS

Our regular look at vulnerabilities and chokepoints that impact risk across the space enterprise – military, civil, and commercial.

WEF Calls for Multipolar, Resilient Space Launch

A recent World Economic Forum article argues that the future growth of the global space economy depends not simply on expanding launch capacity, but on ensuring multiple, resilient, and geographically diverse pathways to orbit. As the space economy grows towards a projected $1.8 trillion by 2035, access to space itself is becoming critical infrastructure, comparable to ports, shipping lanes, or telecommunications networks.

The WEF warns that excessive dependence on a single launch provider, country, or technological ecosystem creates strategic vulnerabilities for governments and commercial users alike. While companies such as SpaceX have dramatically reduced launch costs and expanded access to orbit, the concentration of launch capacity also introduces geopolitical, economic, and supply-chain risks. A more “multi-polar” launch ecosystem, comprising multiple commercial providers, sovereign launch capabilities, and diversified international partnerships, is presented as essential for resilience, competition, and innovation. The WEF also highlights the need for supportive regulation, long-term investment, and international cooperation to sustain this diversification.

The WEF correctly identifies concentration risk, but the deeper issue extends beyond launch. Space is increasingly characterised by concentration across the entire value chain: launch, satellite communications, cloud infrastructure, Earth observation, navigation, and even space domain awareness. Strategic resilience, therefore, requires more than multiple launch vehicles, it demands diversified ecosystems across every critical layer of space infrastructure. The implication is that “multi-polarity” should not be understood solely in geopolitical terms, but also in industrial and architectural ones. The future contest in space will be shaped not simply by who can reach space, but by who controls the interconnected infrastructure on which governments, militaries, and economies increasingly depend. That is the real strategic challenge emerging beneath today’s debate over launch access.

SPACE-THINK

AstroAnalytica’s spotlight on emerging space doctrine, spacepower theory, and wider space strategic thinking that applies to all stakeholders across the space sector.

Victus Haze and Commercial Spacepower

The U.S. Space Force has taken another significant step towards operationalising commercial spacepower through Victus Haze, a tactically responsive mission conducted by True Anomaly and Rocket Lab. The exercise demonstrated rapid launch, autonomous rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO), and close-range inspection of another spacecraft, capabilities traditionally associated with state space programmes. Rocket Lab launched its Puma spacecraft just 16 hours and 42 minutes after notification, while True Anomaly’s Jackal autonomously located, approached, imaged, and manoeuvred around its target in orbit. Future phases are expected to introduce increasingly complex manoeuvres, including evasive operations and reciprocal inspections. The programme is intended to strengthen the Space Force’s ability to rapidly characterise potentially hostile spacecraft, particularly as Russia and China expand their own on-orbit military capabilities. Victus Haze also serves as an important proving ground for companies seeking contracts under the Space Force’s $6.2 billion Andromeda programme, which aims to procure manoeuvrable commercial space capabilities at scale.

Victus Haze illustrates a profound shift in military space doctrine. The key capability is no longer simply placing satellites into orbit, but conducting dynamic operations within orbit, inspection, pursuit, evasion, characterisation, and ultimately, if required, engagement. Spacecraft are evolving from static infrastructure into manoeuvring operational assets. Just as military aviation progressed from reconnaissance aircraft to highly trained fighter pilots executing complex aerial tactics, space is beginning to develop its own equivalent of “fighter pilots” and orbital doctrine. This has major implications for procurement, training, autonomy, and deterrence. The future competitive advantage in space may lie less in who owns the largest constellations than in who can manoeuvre, observe, and respond fastest once spacecraft are already on orbit.

ON OUR RADAR

Other significant developments we have been tracking recently:

• Eclipse Space, a startup founded by former SpaceX engineers, has emerged from stealth to offer sovereign governments and enterprises turnkey, customer-owned megaconstellations, signalling growing demand for national ownership of space infrastructure rather than dependence on commercial operators such as Starlink.

• Israel is accelerating efforts to become a leading military space power by expanding its space-based ISR, communications, missile warning, and future counterspace capabilities, reflecting the growing centrality of space to Israeli defence doctrine following recent regional conflicts.

• SpaceX appears to be exploring a broader Starlink mobile strategy, potentially combining direct-to-device satellite connectivity, proprietary handsets, carrier partnerships, and ground infrastructure to challenge conventional telecom operators.

• The U.S. Space Force has launched a Space Cyber-Cognitive Overmatch initiative to develop breakthrough technologies spanning cyber operations, electromagnetic warfare, artificial intelligence, autonomy, and cognitive decision-making, signalling a shift towards integrated human-machine superiority as a core element of future space operations.

• Russian electronic warfare units continue to struggle to jam Starlink in Ukraine, underscoring both the resilience of proliferated LEO satellite networks in contested environments and the growing challenge they pose to conventional electronic warfare doctrines.

FROM ASTROANALYTICA

Orbital Foresight is produced by AstroAnalytica, a London-based geopolitical space intelligence firm focused on space power, strategic competition, and the future of the orbital economy.

We help governments, investors, defence organisations, and industry leaders understand how developments in space are reshaping power, risk, and opportunity.

To discuss strategic advisory support, research projects, speaking engagements, or partnerships, write to us at contact@astroanalytica.com.

Learn more about AstroAnalytica's research, analysis, and advisory services:

VISIT ASTROANALYTICA

ORBITAL REFLECTION

The SDR was clear that space is a critical national infrastructure sector, and a domain of growing competition that is central to warfighting. Assured access to operate in, from, and through space underpins the UK’s security, prosperity, and daily life. It also underpins our Integrated Force. The RAF is the lead service for space, and it will focus on the ability to deter threats to and protect our interests in space. To achieve this, Defence will be more ambitious in delivering the space capabilities necessary to fight and win. Through UK Space Command, the RAF will deliver a comprehensive joint force which will sense, warn and deter threats while also building a skilled workforce which will be defined by a professional development pathway enabling progression from new recruit through to the leadership of Defence. As we evolve Space Command, up to six Space Squadrons will deliver these roles for Defence. UK Space Command will be supported by the National Armaments Director through a new Space Systems Group which will cohere space operational requirements across Defence and catalyse the delivery of new capability to the frontline at pace to deter emerging threats.

The war in Ukraine has underscored how space is the central nervous system of modern, high-intensity warfare, rather than just a supporting domain. The control of space will be critical in future conflict, enabling command & control, providing warning and intelligence, and delivering powerful effects. This has triggered a strategic shift in UK Defence to treat space as a contested frontline, an essential ‘high ground’, driving increased investment in sovereignty, resilience, and offensive and defensive space control.

Ministry of Defence, The Defence Investment Plan: Equipping our forces, defending our future (June 2026), p. 48.

Need to know more? AstroAnalytica provides bespoke decision support amidst growing space sector complexity and risk, along with strategic forecasting and advisory services for government, defence, investment, and industry clients.

LEAD ANALYSIS

Over the past eighteen months, orbital data centres (ODCs) have evolved from an interesting engineering concept into one of the space sector’s most compelling strategic narratives. Advocates argue that artificial intelligence’s extraordinary appetite for electricity, cooling, land, and grid capacity makes the migration of computation into orbit not merely possible, but eventually inevitable. The narrative is both elegant and intuitively persuasive: AI demand is rising faster than terrestrial infrastructure can comfortably accommodate; data centres face mounting pressures from electricity costs, water consumption, planning restrictions, environmental regulation, and growing political opposition; while space appears to offer abundant solar energy, radiative cooling, and freedom from many of the physical and political constraints that increasingly shape infrastructure development on Earth.

That argument is not speculative or confined to niche corners of the space and AI sectors. It is being advanced by startups, analysts, researchers, and major companies such as SpaceX.

This AstroAnalytica analysis argues that the debate surrounding ODCs has been framed around the wrong question. Most discussion has focused on engineering feasibility, launch economics, and the environmental limitations of terrestrial data centres. Those are important issues, but they are not the decisive ones. The more fundamental question is whether ODCs are being compared with the right market in the first place. This is not primarily an engineering problem; it is a market-definition problem.

That distinction matters because the ODC industry risks making a familiar mistake, one that has recurred throughout the history of the commercial space sector. Again and again, emerging space industries have mistaken a large adjacent market for their own addressable market. The consequence is an investment narrative built around enormous Total Addressable Markets, ambitious infrastructure programmes, and optimistic growth projections, before sufficient attention has been given to identifying the specific customers, workloads, and commercial incentives that will sustain the underlying business. ODCs appear increasingly vulnerable to the same analytical trap.

This is not an argument against orbital data centres. On the contrary, we argue that their long-term prospects may be stronger than many current narratives suggest. But their greatest opportunities are unlikely to emerge from competing directly with terrestrial hyperscale cloud providers. Instead, they are more likely to arise as a new class of space-native computing infrastructure supporting applications and markets for which orbital execution provides a genuine economic, operational, or strategic advantage. That market is almost certainly smaller in the near term than many advocates imply, but it may also prove considerably more valuable, more defensible, and, ultimately, more investable.

The First Strategic Question

The way a market is defined determines the questions that investors, policymakers, and company executives ask about it. At present, the ODC debate is dominated by questions of engineering: Can ODCs be built? How much will they cost? When will they become economically viable? Can they compete with terrestrial hyperscale facilities? These are all legitimate questions, but they obscure a more fundamental one that has received remarkably little attention: what computing workloads are economically superior when performed by an orbital data centre?

The distinction is subtle but profound. Asking whether a workload can be performed in orbit is an engineering question. Asking whether it should be performed in space is a commercial and strategic one. Only when a workload is demonstrably superior in orbit, economically, operationally, or strategically, does it become part of the genuine addressable market for orbital computing.

This distinction has broader implications for the space sector. Commercial space stations have long been framed as serving tourism, manufacturing, research, media, and hospitality. In-space manufacturing has often been framed in terms of the global manufacturing economy. Reusable launch vehicles were initially discussed in the context of transforming access to all of space. In each case, engineering feasibility became intertwined with assumptions about the size of the eventual market. Yet history repeatedly demonstrates that infrastructure does not create demand simply because it exists. Rather, successful infrastructure emerges where clearly defined customer needs already exist or where entirely new capabilities create compelling reasons for customers to adopt them.

The central argument of this analysis is therefore straightforward. The orbital data centre industry should not be analysed as an extension of today’s global cloud market, but as the emergence of a new category of space infrastructure. Once viewed through that lens, the questions become different, the market becomes narrower, and the investment case becomes considerably more rigorous. Yet paradoxically, it also becomes stronger. […]

The complete version of this analysis available on the AstroAnalytica website.

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DECISION SIGNALS

Recent developments that indicate significant strategic changes in the space domain with impact on government policies, investment choices and business decisions:

1. Rocket Lab's Expansion Signals the Rise of the Integrated Space Infrastructure Company

Rocket Lab has announced a major acquisition of Iridium Communications in a cash-and-stock deal worth approximately $8 billion comes only days after the successful launch of the U.S. Space Force’s Victus Haze mission and a tactically responsive launch campaign completed in under 17 hours. If completed, this transaction would confirm the emergence of a new type of space company, of which SpaceX had been a lone exemplar: one capable of controlling multiple layers of the orbital value chain simultaneously. Like SpaceX, Rocket Lab seeks to evolve from a launch provider into a broader space infrastructure company capable of supporting both commercial and national security customers across the full mission lifecycle.

Competitive advantage is shifting towards companies that can combine launch, satellite manufacturing, communications networks, software, operations, intelligence services and mission delivery within a single enterprise. Vertical integration is becoming a strategic capability rather than merely a commercial efficiency.

For governments, this raises important questions about future procurement. Defence customers increasingly require integrated capabilities that can deliver satellites, launch, communications and operational services at speed. Companies able to provide complete mission architectures may enjoy significant advantages over suppliers offering only individual components. The future competitive landscape may therefore be defined less by specialist manufacturers than by a relatively small number of integrated orbital infrastructure providers.

2. Europe's Sovereign Space Industry Continues to Consolidate

Several developments this week illustrate the continuing maturation of Europe’s sovereign space-security industrial base. German manufacturer OHB has secured additional capital to support expansion and acquisitions, while also deepening its partnership with Rheinmetall on the Bundeswehr’s SATCOMBw 4 military communications programme. Meanwhile, Finnish SAR operator ICEYE plans to double the capacity of its radar constellation by the end of 2027 in response to accelerating defence demand, and ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher has renewed calls for greater European strategic autonomy in space.

Taken individually, none of these announcements fundamentally changes Europe’s position. But together they reveal a broader pattern, at least from a business and programmatic point of view. Europe is increasing the speed with which it is assembling the industrial foundations required to support sovereign military space capabilities across communications, Earth observation, manufacturing and secure supply chains.

This direction of travel has been in some evidence for several years; now it is accelerating, crucially, as a matter of political priority. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine exposed Europe’s dependence on American space capabilities, while political uncertainty surrounding future U.S. security commitments has reinforced demands for greater strategic autonomy. European governments are increasingly investing not only in satellites themselves, but in the industrial capacity needed to design, manufacture, launch and sustain them over the long term.

It matters beyond Europe. A more capable European industrial base is likely to reshape defence procurement, investment flows and alliance relationships across the wider space sector. In space as in more traditional areas of defence and other key infrastructures, sovereign capability is increasingly becoming an industrial question as much as a technological one.

3. China Moves to Industrialise Very Low Earth Orbit

China has established a new national Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO) Industry Alliance as several Chinese VLEO experimental spacecraft continue to demonstrate sustained operations at sub-300km altitudes once considered impractical for long-duration missions. At the same time, Beijing continues to broaden international space cooperation through BRICS while its reusable experimental spaceplane programme continues to perform, most recently releasing another unidentified object into orbit.

The individual announcements concern different programmes, but together they point towards an increasingly coordinated Chinese strategy for the next phase of orbital competition. Rather than focusing solely on building larger satellite constellations, Beijing appears to be investing simultaneously in new orbital regimes, reusable space systems, industrial coordination and international partnerships.

VLEO offers potential advantages in Earth observation, communications and military sensing owing to its proximity to the Earth’s surface — including greater resolution, signal latency — albeit at the cost of significantly greater engineering challenges. Establishing an industrial ecosystem around these capabilities suggests China increasingly sees VLEO as an operational domain worthy of sustained investment, rather than as some experimental niche.

Western strategic attention has understandably focused on the rapid growth of Chinese launch activity and emerging megaconstellations. Yet the more important trend may be the steady expansion of China’s capacity to shape future orbital infrastructure across multiple technological frontiers simultaneously. The next phase of space competition is likely to be determined not simply by who launches the most satellites, but by who succeeds in opening new operational environments first.

WEAK LINKS

Our regular look at vulnerabilities and chokepoints that impact risk across the space enterprise – military, civil, and commercial.

The Coming MEO Durability Gap

The space industry has spent the past decade largely focused on how to build and launch large numbers of relatively inexpensive satellites into low-Earth orbit. Increasingly, however, attention is shifting towards a more demanding operating environment. Medium-Earth orbit (MEO), where navigation constellations such as GPS, Galileo and BeiDou reside, is emerging as one of the most strategically important regions of near-Earth space. It is also one of the least forgiving.

A recent SpaceNews analysis argues that much of today’s commercial satellite hardware is simply not designed for long-duration operations in MEO. Radiation levels are significantly higher than in LEO, reducing component lifetimes and increasing the demands placed on spacecraft design, power systems and onboard electronics. As commercial companies look beyond Earth observation and broadband towards positioning, timing, secure communications and future cislunar infrastructure, engineering assumptions that have underpinned the LEO-oriented NewSpace revolution may begin to break down.

At the same time, recent reports of large-scale GPS interference stretching from Europe to South Asia serve as a reminder of how heavily modern societies depend upon the services generated from these higher orbits. Navigation satellites underpin financial transactions, telecommunications, military operations, aviation, shipping, energy networks and critical national infrastructure. Their strategic importance continues to grow even as their operating environment becomes more demanding.

The challenge is therefore not simply technical. If MEO becomes central to the next phase of the orbital economy, resilience will increasingly depend upon whether industry can produce spacecraft capable of surviving there reliably and affordably. One of the next bottlenecks in space may not be just launch capacity or investment capital, but the durability of the satellites themselves.

SPACE-THINK

AstroAnalytica’s spotlight on emerging space doctrine, spacepower theory and wider space strategic thinking that applies to all stakeholders across the space sector.

Responding to Hostile Acts in Space Requires More Than Deterrence

A new report from the Mitchell Institute argues that the United States lacks a coherent framework for responding to hostile activities in orbit that fall below the threshold of armed conflict. Rendezvous and proximity operations, reversible electronic attacks, cyber intrusions, dazzling, jamming and other forms of interference increasingly occupy a grey zone between routine competition and overt warfare, yet policymakers still lack clear guidance on how such actions should be interpreted and answered.

This is ultimately a governance problem as much as a military one. Space has entered an era in which strategic competition is increasingly characterised by ambiguity, incremental pressure and deniable coercion rather than dramatic acts of destruction. Deterrence therefore depends not only on possessing capable space forces, but also on establishing credible thresholds, response options and decision-making processes before a crisis occurs.

This debate is likely to become increasingly relevant beyond the US. As more nations develop military space capabilities, questions surrounding attribution, proportionality and escalation management will become central to responsible space power. Clearer understanding leads to better decisions, which strengthen deterrence and resilience. The countries that establish clear doctrines for operating in this grey zone are likely to enjoy important strategic advantages long before any conflict reaches the point of kinetic confrontation.

ON OUR RADAR

Other significant developments we have been tracking recently:

• Japan's Air Self-Defense Force will become the Japan Air and Space Self-Defense Force, reflecting the growing institutional integration of the space domain into Japanese military planning. The renaming itself is largely symbolic, but symbols matter. Just as air forces emerged as independent institutions during the twentieth century, today's military organisations are increasingly recognising that space is no longer merely an enabling function but an operational domain requiring dedicated doctrine, personnel and command structures. Japan's decision reinforces a broader international trend in which space is becoming embedded across the armed forces rather than confined to specialist organisations.

• The White House has signed an Executive Order intended to accelerate the development of quantum technologies, including quantum space infrastructure, recognising the strategic importance of quantum communications, sensing and secure networking. Quantum technologies remain at an early stage of maturity, but governments are already positioning them as part of the next generation of strategic infrastructure. Countries that establish early leadership in space-enabled quantum networks could shape future standards, industrial ecosystems and security architectures long before the technology reaches mass adoption.

• Shield Space and ClearSpace have announced a partnership to develop technologies designed to protect satellites from hostile activity in orbit. The announcement reflects the continuing evolution of commercial space security. Until recently, satellite protection was largely the preserve of government programmes. A growing number of companies are now developing commercial capabilities for orbital surveillance, inspection and active protection. This points towards the emergence of an entirely new market centred not on building satellites, but on defending them.

• The US Army is developing its own space-related capabilities and organisational structures, through a new Army Space Operations Branch. This development, which also includes explicit mention of “counterspace capabilities”, risks undermining some of the coherence achieved through the establishment of the US Space Force and could lead to duplicated investment, competing requirements, and reduced unity of effort across the US military in the space domain. It is a reminder — including to Allies — that the bureaucratic battle surrounding new military establishments can take a very long time to settle.

FROM ASTROANALYTICA

Orbital Foresight is produced by AstroAnalytica, a London-based geopolitical space intelligence firm focused on space power, strategic competition, and the future of the orbital economy.

We help governments, investors, defence organisations, and industry leaders understand how developments in space are reshaping power, risk, and opportunity.

To discuss strategic advisory support, research projects, speaking engagements, or partnerships, write to us at contact@astroanalytica.com.

Learn more about AstroAnalytica's research, analysis, and advisory services:

VISIT ASTROANALYTICA

ORBITAL REFLECTION

Think of space as a chessboard where both sides get to preposition pieces prior to the start of the game, without full knowledge of the other side. Then either side can start the game at its own discretion by moving all its pieces at once. The rewards for going first, and the penalties or risks for going second, are very high.

All of this is a new dynamic and one that has not been explored or thought about very well at scale. Most war games and scenarios I’ve seen concern themselves with limited-scope and short-term attack scenarios—more like sniping or skirmishing than a full-out assault. The reality, I’m afraid, is that an adversary would move quickly and decisively, with surprise, if possible, to completely destroy all relevant adversary space-based capabilities. (Note that destroying capability is not the same as destroying assets.)

— Frank Kendall, Lethal Autonomy: The Future of Warfare Whether We Like It Or Not (Knox Press, July 2026)

Need to know more? AstroAnalytica provides bespoke decision support amidst growing space sector complexity and risk, along with strategic forecasting and advisory services for government, defence, investment, and industry clients.

LEAD ANALYSIS

The world is becoming riskier, yet insurance prices are falling.

That paradox lies at the heart of a recent Financial Times article examining growing concern among insurance executives that a flood of capital is driving premiums down even as geopolitical instability, cyber threats, artificial intelligence, and climate-related hazards continue to multiply. One senior industry figure describes the trend as “completely illogical”, while others warn that insurers may be underpricing risks whose true costs have yet to be revealed.

This raises an important question: what happens when financial markets become increasingly optimistic at precisely the moment strategic risks become more dangerous?

For the space sector, this question is especially important because many of its most consequential vulnerabilities remain poorly understood, poorly modelled, and potentially underpriced.

EARLY WARNING SYSTEM

Insurance companies are often viewed as another kind of financial institution. In reality, they are something far more interesting. They are risk aggregators, risk modellers, and strategic forecasters. Their business depends upon identifying emerging threats, assigning probabilities to uncertain futures, and pricing those uncertainties into commercial products. In other words, insurers are paid to think seriously about what might go wrong.

Historically, insurance markets have often recognised important shifts before governments and policymakers. Terrorism, climate-related losses, cyber risk, and critical infrastructure vulnerabilities all appeared on the radar of insurers long before they became mainstream policy concerns. Because their business survival depends on understanding uncertainty, insurers are frequently among the first actors forced to confront uncomfortable realities.

Viewed in this way, insurance markets function as a distributed early-warning system for systemic risk, and this perspective is particularly relevant to space. Traditionally, space insurance has focused on relatively familiar hazards: launch failures, satellite malfunctions, manufacturing defects, and operational anomalies. These remain important, yet the strategic environment surrounding space is changing rapidly.

Today, modern space infrastructure faces risks that are increasingly geopolitical in nature. These include counterspace weapons, cyber-attacks, GNSS disruption, electronic warfare, supply-chain threats and crunches, regulatory fragmentation, and congestion in orbit. Many of these threats are difficult to model because they arise not from engineering failures but from strategic competition between states.

More importantly, many are not isolated risks; they are interconnected. This distinction matters because the greatest vulnerabilities in modern space systems are increasingly systemic rather than technical.

THE AI FACTOR

The Financial Times article devotes considerable attention to the insurance industry’s growing concern about artificial intelligence. AI is illustrative for the space sector, as insurers are beginning to recognise that AI may generate losses that are not independent but correlated. A single flaw in a widely used model could potentially affect thousands of organisations simultaneously.

The same logic increasingly applies to space. Insurance functions most effectively when losses are independent. One building burns down while another remains standing. One ship sinks while thousands continue operating normally. Risks can be diversified, but space systems increasingly challenge this assumption.

Consider a major disruption to GNSS services. A single outage could simultaneously affect aviation, shipping, logistics, financial networks, emergency services, military operations, and countless commercial activities. A failure at a major cloud provider could disrupt multiple satellite operators all at once. A software flaw might propagate across an entire constellation, and a significant anti-satellite conflict could trigger cascading economic consequences far beyond the space sector itself.

These are precisely the kinds of correlated risks that traditional insurance models struggle to accommodate, and for those of us in the space sector, this suggests an intriguing question: what should we be watching? The answer may not lie solely in defence budgets, government white papers, or military doctrines. It may also lie in insurance and capital markets.

Changes in satellite insurance premiums, new policy exclusions, shifts in reinsurance pricing, catastrophe bond spreads, cyber-war exclusions, and emerging AI liability clauses all represent potential indicators of changing risk perceptions. These are not merely financial signals. They are assessments of future uncertainty expressed through market behaviour.

PRICING THE FUTURE

If insurers begin raising premiums for particular classes of space infrastructure, tightening coverage for cyber-related incidents, or introducing new exclusions linked to geopolitical activity, they may be signalling concerns that have not yet entered mainstream strategic debate. Similarly, changes in the appetite of reinsurers or catastrophe bond investors may reveal growing concern about systemic vulnerabilities long before policymakers publicly acknowledge them. This is why the Financial Times article is ultimately not about insurance; it is about whether markets are correctly pricing the future.

For the space sector, that question may be even more important than for many other industries because many of its most consequential risks have never been experienced at scale. No modern economy has yet experienced a prolonged disruption of global satellite navigation services. No major power conflict has yet involved sustained counterspace operations against large commercial constellations. No insurer has yet had to quantify the consequences of a systemic AI failure embedded across multiple space architectures.

The future space risk environment, therefore, remains largely theoretical. The implication is straightforward: the space sector should spend less time focusing exclusively on what governments say they fear, and more time examining what insurers, reinsurers, and capital markets are quietly pricing.

This analysis is also available to read on the AstroAnalytica website.

READ IN FULL ON OUR WEBSITE

DECISION SIGNALS

Recent developments that indicate significant strategic changes in the space domain with impact on government policies, investment choices and business decisions:

1. China Signals Growing Concern Over the Militarisation of LEO

China’s official military newspaper, PLA Daily, has warned that the “era of the militarised application of low-orbit constellations is arriving at an accelerated pace.” Articles authored by researchers from the PLA’s Space Security Research Centre highlighted the battlefield role of systems such as Starlink, the growing importance of satellite-enabled drone warfare, and major U.S. military programmes including the Space Development Agency’s Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture and the Space Force’s space-based tracking initiatives. The PLA argues that LEO constellations are no longer merely communications systems or strategic support assets, but have become indispensable enablers of modern military operations. It also emphasised competition for orbital slots and radiofrequency spectrum, describing them as scarce strategic resources. Notably, the articles did not mention China’s own plans to deploy mega-constellations through the Guowang and Qianfan programmes.

The real significance is not what China says about Starlink, but what it reveals about Chinese military thinking. The PLA appears to have fully absorbed the lessons of Ukraine: commercial satellite constellations are now critical military infrastructure. Equally important, Beijing increasingly views orbital positions and spectrum as strategic terrain to be occupied, defended, and contested. This suggests future space competition will be driven not only by satellite technology, but by the race to build resilient orbital architectures at scale. The emerging contest is no longer about individual satellites. It is about who can construct and sustain the orbital networks that connect sensors, AI, communications, and military operations across every domain of warfare.

2. Europe Moves to Limit Starlink’s Access to Satellite Spectrum

The European Union is considering reserving part of the 2GHz direct-to-device (D2D) satellite spectrum band for European operators, a move that would restrict access for foreign providers including SpaceX’s Starlink. The proposal is part of a broader effort to strengthen European space and telecommunications sovereignty, although it has drawn criticism from SpaceX, which argues the policy could reduce service availability and create interference risks, including for emergency communications in Ukraine. The debate has also acquired a geopolitical dimension. Earlier this year, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission warned that Washington could consider reciprocal measures if Europe adopted policies that discriminated against American satellite operators. The proposal must still pass negotiations with EU member states and the European Parliament.

This is not fundamentally a spectrum-management dispute. It is another front in the growing contest over technological sovereignty. For decades, spectrum allocation was primarily a technical and regulatory issue. Today it is becoming an instrument of industrial policy, economic security, and geopolitical competition. Europe increasingly fears strategic dependence on foreign space infrastructure, particularly after Starlink’s central role in Ukraine and growing concerns about reliance on a single U.S. provider. The deeper implication is that the global space economy may be entering a period of regulatory fragmentation. Access to orbital resources, spectrum, and markets may increasingly depend not only on technical performance, but also on nationality, political alignment, and strategic considerations. For commercial operators, geopolitical risk is becoming as important as engineering risk.

3. Rheinmetall Accelerates Its Push Into Military Space

Germany’s defence giant Rheinmetall has announced a new joint venture with U.S. geospatial intelligence firm Vantor to provide “spatial intelligence” capabilities for the German military and future European ISR programmes. The partnership will integrate Vantor’s Tensorglobe optical Earth observation platform into Rheinmetall’s command-and-control systems, fusing satellite SAR, electro-optical, infrared, and airborne sensor data into operational intelligence products. The agreement follows two other recent Rheinmetall moves in the space sector: a satellite communications joint venture with OHB SE to support Germany’s planned SATCOMBw Level 4 constellation, and the launch of Rheinmetall ICEYE Space Solutions GmbH, with ICEYE focused on space-based intelligence capabilities. Collectively, these initiatives span optical and SAR ISR, satellite communications, data fusion, and military networking.

This is about far more than Rheinmetall entering the space market. It reflects the growing convergence of the defence and space sectors, with traditional defence primes increasingly treating space as a core military domain rather than a niche support function. What is particularly notable is Rheinmetall’s focus on integration rather than satellite manufacturing. The company is positioning itself as a military systems integrator capable of combining commercial and government space capabilities into operational warfighting architectures. The broader signal is that Europe’s emerging military space ecosystem may not be led by traditional satellite companies alone. Instead, defence primes with deep customer relationships, programme management, and battlefield integration experience could become some of the most influential actors in shaping Europe’s future spacepower capabilities.

WEAK LINKS

Our regular look at vulnerabilities and chokepoints that impact risk across the space enterprise – military, civil, and commercial.

The Iran-Israel Conflict Shows Space Infrastructure Is Now a Routine Cyber Target

Analysis of the ongoing U.S.-Israel-Iran conflict identified at least 25 cyber operations targeting space-related organisations between February and April 2026. While lower than the 67 space-sector cyber incidents recorded during the 2025 Iran-Israel war, the latest campaign appears more sophisticated, with a greater role played by state-linked actors and a noticeable shift towards targets in the Gulf, particularly the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain.

Among the most significant incidents were alleged attacks by the IRGC-linked group Mobir against UAE-based space companies, including Space42, Yahsat, Thuraya, and Bayanat, as well as claims of attacks against the UAE Space Agency and Arabsat. Other operations included phishing campaigns targeting aerospace companies through the Abu Dhabi Space Debate and cyber activities directed at geospatial intelligence personnel and organisations.

Notably, no confirmed cyberattacks successfully targeted satellites in orbit. Instead, attacks focused overwhelmingly on ground infrastructure, enterprise IT systems, personnel, and supporting networks.

The key lesson is that space warfare is increasingly occurring below the orbital level. While public debate often focuses on anti-satellite weapons and orbital conflict, adversaries continue to find it easier, cheaper, and more effective to target ground stations, corporate networks, supply chains, and personnel.

Equally significant is the growing convergence of cyber operations, influence campaigns, and psychological warfare. Space companies are no longer being targeted solely for technical disruption, but also for political signalling, coercion, and narrative effects.

For space operators, resilience is becoming less about protecting satellites alone and more about defending the entire space enterprise. The weakest link is increasingly found on the ground, not in orbit.

SPACE-THINK

AstroAnalytica’s spotlight on emerging space doctrine, spacepower theory and wider space strategic thinking that applies to all stakeholders across the space sector.

DARPA Prepares for a World Where Satellites Are Lost in the Opening Hours of War

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has issued a Request for Information seeking concepts for the rapid reconstitution of space capabilities following an attack. The initiative explores how critical services could be restored on timelines measured in hours or weeks rather than years through modular satellites, software-defined payloads, responsive launch, on-orbit assembly, proliferated architectures, and greater use of commercial space assets.

The effort reflects growing concern that a future conflict, particularly in the Indo-Pacific, could begin with attacks on the satellites and networks that underpin U.S. military operations. DARPA’s focus is no longer simply on protecting space systems, but on ensuring they can be rapidly replaced, reconfigured, or augmented after sustaining losses.

The most important issue is not technological but strategic. DARPA’s request suggests that U.S. planners increasingly assume that space superiority can no longer be guaranteed in the opening stages of a major conflict.

This represents a subtle but profound shift. For decades, military space strategy focused on building exquisite satellites that could survive and operate. The emerging paradigm assumes that some satellites will be lost and that victory will depend on the ability to regenerate capability faster than an adversary can destroy it.

In effect, space is beginning to resemble other warfighting domains where attrition is expected rather than exceptional. The future competitive advantage may belong not to the country with the most advanced satellites, but to the one with the most resilient industrial base, fastest reconstitution capability, and deepest integration between military and commercial space systems.

The emerging contest is increasingly about regeneration, not merely protection.

ON OUR RADAR

Other significant developments we have been tracking recently:

• Germany's €35 billion military space buildup is exposing a critical industrial bottleneck, forcing the Bundeswehr to accelerate partnerships between established defence primes, New Space companies, and international suppliers as it races to build sovereign space capabilities, including the flagship SATCOMBw Stage 4 constellation, without sufficient domestic workforce and production capacity to meet demand.

• Canada has awarded NorthStar Earth & Space a $40 million contract to provide the Royal Canadian Air Force with commercial space domain awareness services, underscoring the growing role of domestic commercial providers in delivering sovereign space surveillance capabilities and supporting national security objectives.

• Russia has reportedly begun operational deployment of the Volna Kupol Garant electronic warfare system to disrupt Starlink-enabled communications and drone operations, highlighting the growing importance of terrestrial counterspace capabilities designed to deny access to commercial satellite networks without physically attacking satellites in orbit.

• The UK Ministry of Defence has acknowledged that proposed international spectrum and satellite-interference rule changes could affect military communications, including the SKYNET programme, and is actively working through regulatory, technical, and diplomatic channels to protect the UK's sovereign satellite capabilities and assured access to the electromagnetic spectrum.

• French startups Look Up and Skynopy are developing ATLAS², a European-backed automated collision avoidance system that combines sovereign space surveillance radars, real-time conjunction analysis, and rapid satellite command-and-control to reduce response times from hours to minutes and strengthen Europe's independent space traffic management capabilities.

FROM ASTROANALYTICA

Orbital Foresight is produced by AstroAnalytica, a London-based geopolitical space intelligence firm focused on space power, strategic competition, and the future of the orbital economy.

We help governments, investors, defence organisations, and industry leaders understand how developments in space are reshaping power, risk, and opportunity.

To discuss strategic advisory support, research projects, speaking engagements, or partnerships, write to us at contact@astroanalytica.com.

Learn more about AstroAnalytica's research, analysis, and advisory services:

VISIT ASTROANALYTICA

ORBITAL REFLECTION

Humanity has always looked to space in awe. Since the 1950’s it has engaged with it directly, but mostly for scientific or military ends largely immune to economic logic. That era is over: space is now a marketplace. The choices made in the coming years, over property rights, market structure, the division of authority between states and firms, and the distribution of benefits between spacefaring and non-spacefaring nations, will shape that world in ways that are difficult to reverse. History suggests we should not leave them to be made by default, by the actors with the strongest incentive and the greatest capacity to shape them in their own interest. That, in essence, is the lesson of the East India Companies.

— Stefano Marcuzzi & Alessio Terzi, “Outsourcing the final frontier: Space X, the East India Company and the political economy of space,” Bennett School of Public Policy, University of Cambridge, UK, 3 June 2026

Need to know more? AstroAnalytica provides bespoke decision support amidst growing space sector complexity and risk, along with strategic forecasting and advisory services for government, defence, investment, and industry clients.

LEAD ANALYSIS

Introduction: The JEF’s Unrecognised Strategic Domain

The Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) is rapidly becoming one of Europe’s most agile and successful security arrangements, with a focus on the High North, the Baltic, and the North Atlantic.

Yet the JEF remains largely conceived as a maritime, air, land, and cyber enterprise, despite all of its operations being not only space-dependent but increasingly space-enabled. Moreover, the JEF’s principal security rival, Russia, is proactively seeking to disrupt, degrade, and even destroy the very space capabilities that the JEF relies upon.

A number of the JEF’s member nations are also home to Europe’s (and among the world’s) most strategically important cluster of space infrastructure and industry, ranging from ground stations in the High North to Europe’s launch gateways for accessing low-Earth orbit (LEO), and to some of the most advanced satellite companies operating today. In the event of a crisis or war, the JEF, and NATO, may well find themselves having to defend critical space infrastructure against a determined adversary in its own backyard.

The issue facing the JEF, therefore, is whether it possesses a sufficiently space-minded strategic mindset to recognise the orbital dimensions of its mission set, and more broadly, that of Northern European security. The future effectiveness of the JEF will increasingly depend upon the development of a culture of space-mindedness within its planning, training, and command structures and activities, as well as across the wider force. A failure to do so could result in the critical enabling infrastructure for everything else the JEF does at sea, on land, in the air, and in cyberspace and the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS) put at needless risk.

In this light, the establishment of a JEF Space Cell should be viewed not as an end in itself, but as one practical expression of a broader strategic transformation of the force. This analysis explores the JEF’s space dependencies, its space infrastructure and industrial base within its operating area, and how space-mindedness and a JEF Space Cell can better prepare the force for future conflicts.

I. The JEF and the Strategic Geography of Northern Europe

The JEF was created to ensure Northern European and High North regional security and rapidly respond to military or humanitarian crises, and to deter potential adversary aggression against its members and in the region. The force is comprised of the militaries of its ten member states but sits outside of NATO and its command structures as well as those of the European Union, yet can “plug” into wider NATO operations as required. The JEF member states use NATO doctrine and standards as a baseline for its operations and cooperation.

The JEF was set up in 2014 by its original seven founding states and declared operational in 2015. In 2017 Finland and Sweden joined, followed by Iceland in 2021. As of the summer of 2026 the JEF comprises of ten Northern European countries that stretch from the Baltic states, all of Scandinavia, the UK, and all the way to Iceland in the North Atlantic. The member states include Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and its leading founding member and home of the JEF’s command, the United Kingdom.

The JEF’s operating area covers some of the most important and strategic geographies in Europe and the North, especially in relation to the JEF’s principal adversary, Russia. The Baltic states and the Baltic Sea, along with Finland and Norway, all face the Russian border. Russia is aggressively asserting its interests in the Arctic and High North, often challenging the legitimate interests of JEF member states. In the North Atlantic, Russian submarines are reconnoitring and even interfering with the undersea cables that are crucial for European and transatlantic data flows, the lifeblood of our economies, and for the ability to command and control military forces across vast geographical distances. Moreover, while the JEF is not a formal NATO organisation, all of its member states to date are NATO members, and the JEF plays a closely supporting role in helping to secure NATO’s Northern and North-Eastern flanks, as well as the crucial lines of communications across the Atlantic Ocean.

The JEF’s geographic area just outlined above overlaps with critical European space infrastructure and orbital support networks, placing the space domain firmly within the JEF’s geographical area of responsibility. These space assets are not just a vital support and enabling infrastructure for all JEF operations on the Earth’s surface, but also in cyberspace and EMS, and in the orbits that cross above the operating area. These space systems must, in turn, be defended against an adversary that is actively planning to degrade and even destroy them in war.

In other words, the JEF’s traditional geography is becoming an orbital geography. […]

This is an excerpt from a longer AstroAnalytica analysis exploring the space dimension of the UK-led Joint Expeditionary Force.

READ IN FULL ON OUR WEBSITE

DECISION SIGNALS

Recent developments that indicate significant strategic changes in the space domain with impact on government policies, investment choices and business decisions:

1. Spire Global–Diehl Defence Partnership Highlights Europe’s Emerging Missile-Warning Architecture

Spire Global and Diehl Defence have signed a memorandum of understanding to explore the development of space-based missile warning and hypersonic threat detection capabilities for Germany and Europe. The partnership seeks to combine Spire’s low-Earth orbit satellite constellation, data analytics, and geospatial intelligence capabilities with Diehl’s expertise in missile systems, air defence, and military command-and-control integration. The initiative reflects a broader European trend toward sovereign space-security capabilities. Historically, European governments have relied heavily on U.S. missile-warning systems, but Russia’s war against Ukraine, the proliferation of advanced missile technologies, and growing concerns about strategic dependence are driving interest in indigenous space-based early warning architectures. Particularly notable is the focus on hypersonic threats. The agreement also aligns with Spire’s recent expansion of its satellite manufacturing presence in Munich, signalling a commitment to supporting sovereign European space missions and defence-related requirements.

This partnership is not simply about missile warning. It is another indicator that Europe is moving from being a consumer of U.S.-provided strategic space services toward becoming a producer of sovereign space-security capabilities. More importantly, it highlights the emergence of a new class of European defence-space companies seeking to integrate commercial satellite constellations directly into operational military kill chains. If successful, such efforts could become the foundation of a future European missile-warning and space-domain awareness architecture, reducing dependence on Washington while reshaping Europe’s defence-industrial and space-security landscape.

2. Rafael–Reflex Aerospace Target Sovereign Persistent ISR Market with New EO Constellation

Israel’s Rafael and Germany’s Reflex Aerospace have announced a partnership to develop a new Very High Repetition Rate and Resolution (VHR²C) Earth observation constellation. Combining Rafael’s flight-proven 30 cm electro-optical payloads, AI-enabled intelligence processing, and electric propulsion systems with Reflex’s rapidly manufacturable satellite platform, the system is designed to deliver persistent, high-frequency imagery and intelligence services. The first satellite is scheduled for launch in Q4 2027. Both companies are positioning the constellation to meet growing government and commercial demand for continuous monitoring, rapid revisit rates, and sovereign access to space-based intelligence.

This is another sign that the future Earth observation market is shifting from imagery collection to persistent intelligence delivery. More importantly, it reflects the growing convergence of defence contractors and commercial space companies seeking to provide sovereign ISR capabilities at constellation scale. For Europe and Israel, the ability to generate continuous, independent intelligence from space is increasingly becoming a strategic necessity rather than a niche capability.

3. EnduroSat and Shield Space Accelerate Operational Space Defence

Bulgaria’s EnduroSat and UK defence technology firm Shield Space have announced a partnership to deliver rapidly deployable space defence missions for NATO and allied customers. By combining Shield Space’s autonomous rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO) technologies with EnduroSat’s standardised satellite platforms and end-to-end space services, the companies claim they can move from contract award to on-orbit operations in as little as nine months. The partnership’s first mission, BROADSWORD, is scheduled for launch in 2027 and will demonstrate an autonomous chaser spacecraft conducting RPO activities against a co-deployed target satellite. The companies describe the offering as a “mission-as-a-product” model, providing spacecraft, launch, software, and operations as a single integrated service.

This announcement signals the emergence of a faster, lower-cost model for military space capabilities. Rather than procuring bespoke satellites through lengthy acquisition cycles, defence customers may increasingly purchase operational space missions as integrated services. If successful, this approach could significantly accelerate NATO’s ability to field space control and counterspace capabilities, while lowering barriers to entry for allied countries seeking sovereign military space capabilities.

WEAK LINKS

Our regular look at vulnerabilities and chokepoints that impact risk across the space enterprise – military, civil, and commercial.

Germany Signals Shift Toward Active Space Deterrence

Germany’s top military space commander, Major General Michael Traut, has warned that Russia may be pursuing the capability to place a nuclear device in orbit, a scenario that could disable large portions of the satellite infrastructure underpinning modern economies and military operations. While emphasizing that such a threat remains unconfirmed, Traut highlighted the potentially devastating effects of a high-altitude nuclear detonation, including widespread satellite failures, severe debris generation, and the long-term loss of access to key orbital regions.

More significantly, Traut outlined a broader shift in German space policy. Germany is moving beyond a purely defensive posture and is developing capabilities to deter and, if necessary, counter hostile space activities. Planned capabilities include jammers, lasers, inspection satellites, spaceplanes, and a sovereign military satellite communications constellation under the SATCOMBw 4 programme.

Traut also stressed the importance of European cooperation, positioning Germany’s future military satellite network as complementary to the EU’s IRIS² constellation and potentially available to allied nations.

The most important signal is not the nuclear warning itself, but Germany’s increasingly explicit embrace of space control and deterrence. Europe’s largest economy is publicly acknowledging that future conflicts will require both defensive and offensive space capabilities. This marks another step in the gradual militarisation of European space policy and suggests that space control, once largely the preserve of the United States, Russia, and China, is becoming a core element of European defence planning.

SPACE-THINK

AstroAnalytica’s spotlight on emerging space doctrine, spacepower theory and wider space strategic thinking that applies to all stakeholders across the space sector.

RAND Calls for New Governance Approach to Dual-Use Space Systems

A new RAND study argues that the distinction between civilian and military space systems is becoming increasingly irrelevant, as most modern satellites support both commercial and national security functions. The report warns that this dual-use reality creates risks of misinterpretation, where routine satellite activities could be perceived as hostile, potentially triggering escalation or conflict.

Drawing on the first year of RAND’s three-year Duality in Space project, the study concludes that no universally accepted definition of a dual-use space system exists and that attempts to distinguish between “civilian” and “military” systems are becoming less practical. Instead, RAND recommends a governance framework focused on observable behaviours and effects rather than ownership, intent, or technical design.

The report also highlights growing governance challenges posed by emerging capabilities such as on-orbit servicing, autonomous spacecraft, and other technologies whose peaceful and military applications are often indistinguishable.

RAND’s most important contribution is its recognition that dual-use is no longer the exception in space; it is the norm. If policymakers accept this premise, future space governance debates may shift away from regulating technologies and toward regulating behaviours. Such a transition would have profound implications for commercial operators, military planners, and diplomats alike, particularly as proximity operations, satellite servicing, and autonomous systems become increasingly central to both commercial space activity and space security competition.

ON OUR RADAR

Other significant developments we have been tracking recently:

• The Israel-Iran conflict demonstrates that satellite imagery is no longer an inherently trusted source of truth, as AI-generated image manipulation, deception operations, and satellite-targeted information warfare are transforming commercial and military space systems into contested instruments of perception management as much as intelligence collection.

• Airbus Defence and Space has assembled a consortium of German space and technology firms to develop a sovereign European ISR architecture, reflecting growing demand for end-to-end intelligence capabilities that reduce dependence on non-European space infrastructure, data, and services.

• The rise of sophisticated retail investor communities using open-source intelligence, satellite imagery, facility visits, and crowdsourced analysis to track companies such as Rocket Lab highlights how the democratisation of space data is creating a new class of highly informed market participants capable of rivalling traditional institutional research.

• Iran is reportedly considering targeting infrastructure and assets linked to Elon Musk’s companies, including Starlink ground stations and SpaceX-related investments across the Middle East, signalling the growing perception that commercial space systems and their supporting infrastructure constitute legitimate military targets in modern conflict.

• ESA has awarded AAC Clyde Space a €10.9 million contract to develop the 12-satellite Inflecion constellation, combining VDES, SAR, and signals intelligence to enhance maritime domain awareness, identify non-cooperative vessels, and strengthen Europe’s sovereign space-based maritime surveillance capabilities.

FROM ASTROANALYTICA

Orbital Foresight is produced by AstroAnalytica, a London-based geopolitical space intelligence firm focused on space power, strategic competition, and the future of the orbital economy.

We help governments, investors, defence organisations, and industry leaders understand how developments in space are reshaping power, risk, and opportunity.

To discuss strategic advisory support, research projects, speaking engagements, or partnerships, write to us at contact@astroanalytica.com.

Learn more about AstroAnalytica's research, analysis, and advisory services:

VISIT ASTROANALYTICA

ORBITAL REFLECTION

Undoubtedly, the vicious combat in Bakhmut was shocking. Yet, at the same time as soldiers were hacking each other to death in waterlogged trenches in hills above the town, Russian and Ukrainian commanders were harnessing all the capabilities of the most recent technological innovations—Al, digitisation, and data. During the Battle of Bakhmut, thousands of drones were used; on any given day, dozens were flying over the town. First person-view drones struck Russian forces as they attacked the town, but most drones identified targets and gathered a mass of data. Both sides have employed electronic warfare to jam each other's signals and to identify targets. They have operated in cyberspace, attacking each other's civilian and military communications and information systems in both Ukraine and Russia and beyond. They have employed digital communications systems to plan and command operations. The Ukrainians, in particular, have relied on a dense constellation of satellites to communicate, to plan, and to coordinate their forces. The result is strange. Roman legionnaires would have recognised the carnage in the fields north of Bakhmut. Yet that horror was facilitated by satellites orbiting silently hundreds of miles above the fighting and by Al processing data in military headquarters in Ukraine and beyond.

— Anthony King, AI, Automation, and War: The Rise of a Military-Tech Complex (2026)

Need to know more? AstroAnalytica provides bespoke decision support amidst growing space sector complexity and risk, along with strategic forecasting and advisory services for government, defence, investment, and industry clients.

LEAD ANALYSIS

When most initial public offerings occur, investors evaluate a familiar set of questions. How fast is revenue growing? Is the company profitable? Does management have a credible strategy? How large is the addressable market? SpaceX is different.

Its IPO is undoubtedly a financial event. It may also become one of the largest public offerings in history, raising approximately $75 billion at a valuation approaching $1.75 trillion. Yet to view the listing solely through a financial lens is to miss its broader significance. The SpaceX IPO should instead be understood as a geopolitical event.

The filing reveals a company that is working to sit at the intersection of commercial infrastructure, national security, communications, artificial intelligence, orbital logistics, and long-term ambitions for cislunar and interplanetary development. SpaceX is no longer simply competing in the aerospace sector. It is building infrastructure upon which governments, militaries, businesses, and societies may increasingly depend, and that dependency is the real story.

The twentieth century was shaped by control over energy infrastructure, maritime trade routes, and telecommunications networks. The twenty-first century may increasingly be shaped by control over orbital infrastructure. The SpaceX IPO provides perhaps the clearest indication yet that this transition is already underway.

The Core SpaceX Thesis

At its heart, the SpaceX investment thesis rests upon a deceptively simple proposition.

The company believes that access to space is becoming dramatically cheaper, more frequent, and more commercially valuable. If this assumption proves correct, then launch vehicles, satellite communications, orbital infrastructure, and eventually lunar and cislunar logistics could become foundational components of the global economy.

The filing reveals three interlocking growth engines.

The first is launch. SpaceX has established a dominant position in orbital launch through Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, creating a launch cadence unmatched by any competitor anywhere in the world.

The second is connectivity. Starlink has evolved from an ambitious satellite broadband project into the company’s principal revenue driver. The constellation has become one of the world’s most important communications systems, serving consumers, governments, militaries, and commercial users across the globe.

The third is future infrastructure. The filing places enormous emphasis on opportunities related to artificial intelligence, orbital computing, space-based data infrastructure, and long-term expansion beyond Earth orbit. Much of the company’s future valuation depends not on current profitability but on confidence that these future markets will emerge at scale.

This is why conventional valuation approaches struggle to capture the company’s ambitions. Investors are not simply buying a launch company, they are buying exposure to a vision of future infrastructure.

The Governance Risk

The filing simultaneously reveals one of the most unusual governance structures in modern public markets.

Elon Musk retains approximately 85% voting control despite owning a substantially smaller economic stake. Governance provisions reportedly make removal of the chief executive extraordinarily difficult and preserve Musk’s authority even after the company becomes public.

Supporters will argue that this structure protects long-term vision from short-term market pressure. They point to Musk’s track record at Tesla and SpaceX and argue that transformational projects often require insulation from quarterly earnings expectations.

Critics will see something different.

They see “key-man” risk on an unprecedented scale. Strategic decisions, capital allocation, acquisitions, technological priorities, and long-term direction remain heavily dependent upon a single individual. The IPO therefore asks investors, governments, and commercial partners to place extraordinary confidence in Musk’s judgement and continued effectiveness.

For policymakers and institutional investors, this creates an unusual challenge. SpaceX increasingly resembles critical infrastructure, yet its governance remains closer to a founder-controlled startup technology company than a traditional infrastructure provider.

The Elon Musk Risk

The governance issue leads directly to a broader question: how should observers think about Elon Musk himself?

Musk is simultaneously one of SpaceX’s greatest strengths and one of its most significant risks.

His ability to attract talent, capital, political attention, and public enthusiasm has unquestionably contributed to the company’s success. The extraordinary demand reported during the IPO process reflects not merely confidence in SpaceX, but confidence in Musk’s ability to execute ambitious visions.

Yet this concentration of authority also creates vulnerability. Political controversies, regulatory disputes, legal challenges, succession questions, reputational crises, or simple strategic miscalculation could have outsized consequences. As SpaceX becomes increasingly integrated into critical communications, defence, and infrastructure systems, Musk himself becomes a geopolitical variable.

This is not normal: very few infrastructure systems of comparable importance depend so heavily upon a single individual’s choices and health. […]

This is an excerpt from a longer AstroAnalytica analysis examining the geopolitical risk implications of SpaceX’s impending IPO.

READ IN FULL ON OUR WEBSITE

DECISION SIGNALS

Recent developments that indicate significant strategic changes in the space domain with impact on government policies, investment choices and business decisions:

1. Russia’s ‘Lightning’ Satellites and the Future of Space Denial

A new study by researchers at the University of Texas and Stanford University has identified a series of powerful, continent-scale GNSS interference events affecting Europe, Greenland, and Canada since 2019. Using seven years of data from more than 160 GNSS reference stations, the authors conclude that the most likely source is a constellation of Russian early-warning satellites operating in highly elliptical Molniya (“lightning”) orbits.

The interference differs markedly from the terrestrial jamming and spoofing incidents that have become commonplace around Ukraine and the Baltic region. These events were brief, geographically widespread, and capable of causing GPS L1 signal degradation of up to 10 dB across large portions of Europe. The authors do not attribute intent, leaving open the possibility of equipment malfunction or unintended emissions.

The findings point to a more significant trend: the growing vulnerability of space-enabled infrastructure to interference originating from space itself. Most discussions of space conflict focus on satellites being destroyed, but this paper suggests a different future. The most consequential forms of space denial may be intermittent, deniable, and difficult-to-attribute disruptions of the services upon which modern societies depend. If so, then resilience, not simply redundancy, may become the defining challenge for space security in the years ahead.

2. From Satellite-to-Soldier to AI-to-Shooter

A recent Wall Street Journal report highlights a potentially significant evolution in modern warfare. Ukrainian units are now receiving near-real-time commercial satellite imagery directly on tablets, phones, and laptops, allowing them to identify, validate, and strike Russian targets in minutes rather than hours or days. According to the companies involved, the system has reduced targeting timelines by as much as 90 percent by combining commercial satellite imagery, AI-assisted analysis, historical image comparison, and drone strike planning into a single workflow.

The immediate lesson is that the sensor-to-shooter cycle is being compressed. Capabilities once confined to intelligence agencies and national command centres are increasingly reaching small tactical units at the front line. Commercial space infrastructure is no longer simply supporting military operations; it is becoming part of the kill chain itself.

Less obvious, however, is that this transformation does not eliminate strategic chokepoints. It merely relocates them. Traditional intelligence architectures contained a visible “thin waist” through which all vital information must pass, centred on intelligence headquarters, analysts, and command structures. The emerging model appears more direct, but still depends upon a complex chain of vulnerable satellite operations, cloud infrastructure, AI processing, communications networks, software platforms, and data distribution systems.

The future advantage in warfare may not belong to the actor with the most satellites or drones, but to the actor that can most effectively manage the hidden infrastructure between them. As sensor-to-shooter cycles compress, the decisive information funnel is shifting from intelligence headquarters to the AI-cloud-data architecture that increasingly sustains the kill-chain.

3. Europe’s Security Depends on More Than What It Can See

In a recent Politico article, ICEYE CEO Rafal Modrzewski argues that Europe remains overly dependent on non-European space-based intelligence and calls for a federated “Constellation Europe” of more than 1,000 sovereign satellites. The temporary interruption of intelligence support to Ukraine in 2025 demonstrated that even the closest alliances remain subject to political decisions, leaving Europe vulnerable when it relies on “someone else’s eyes.” Yet gaining the edge in future space conflict will be less about collecting the most data — important though that will remain — but to those who can process, interpret, and act on it fastest. Observation is only the first step in a chain that runs from collection to analysis, decision, and action. Europe’s security will ultimately depend not on how much it can see, but on how quickly it can transform what it sees into decision advantage.

WEAK LINKS

Our regular look at vulnerabilities and chokepoints that impact risk across the space enterprise – military, civil, and commercial.

Taiwan Ponders Chinese Space Warfare

Taiwan’s space agency has warned that it currently lacks the ability to reliably monitor potentially hostile Chinese satellite activity in orbit. While much attention focuses on missiles, ships, and aircraft, Taiwanese officials are increasingly concerned about a quieter challenge: knowing what is happening around their satellites before it is too late.

The concern reflects a broader shift in space security. China has spent years developing increasingly sophisticated rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO) capabilities, including satellites capable of manoeuvring close to other spacecraft. Such activities may support inspection, servicing, intelligence collection, electronic warfare, or potentially counterspace operations. The difficulty is that these actions are often difficult to distinguish from one another.

This highlights a growing vulnerability for space-dependent countries: attribution. A satellite can be shadowed, monitored, interfered with, or even targeted for attack without clear evidence of hostile intent. Unlike activities at sea or in the air, collecting and presenting proof of malign behaviour in orbit remains exceptionally difficult.

For Taiwan, the issue is Chinese space activity. For the rest of the world, the lesson is broader. As satellites become ever more important for communications, navigation, intelligence, and military operations, the ability to monitor behaviour in orbit is becoming as important as the satellites themselves.

The future of deterrence in space may depend less on protecting satellites and more on the ability to observe, attribute, and publicise hostile behaviour before a crisis escalates.

SPACE-THINK

AstroAnalytica’s spotlight on emerging space doctrine, spacepower theory and wider space strategic thinking that applies to all stakeholders across the space sector.

Guardians on the Moon? Not So Fast…

A new Mitchell Institute paper argues that the United States should establish a military human spaceflight programme within the U.S. Space Force to counter China’s lunar ambitions and eventually provide Title 10 military personnel capable of defending American interests on and around the Moon. The paper correctly identifies China’s consistency of purpose and the growing strategic importance of sustained lunar presence.

However, this vision of military Guardians operating in cislunar space rests on highly debatable assumptions. The more immediate challenges are not armed astronauts, but the infrastructure that makes lunar activity possible: transportation, communications, logistics, power, navigation, and governance. These are likely to become the real centres of gravity in any future lunar economy.

The strategic competition for the Moon is real. The prospect of armed American astronauts enforcing order on the lunar frontier is not. For the foreseeable future, power in cislunar space will flow less from military personnel and more from control of the infrastructure, standards, and networks upon which all lunar activity depends.

ON OUR RADAR

Other significant developments we have been tracking recently:

• China’s 200,000-satellite filing signals that the next U.S.-China space rivalry may be won as much in regulatory arenas like the World Radiocommunication Conference 2027 (WRC-27) as on the launch pad.

• A report by Estonia’s International Centre for Defence and Security (ICDS) notes that Ukraine has demonstrated that space is no longer merely a force multiplier but a warfighting domain, exposing Europe’s growing dependence on commercial space services and the urgent need for sovereign, resilient space capabilities.

  

• China’s Qianfan megaconstellation has reached 200 satellites and is accelerating rapidly, signalling Beijing’s determination to challenge Starlink and establish a major presence in the future orbital communications economy.

• Lockheed Martin is expanding its space workforce in Britain as part of a major £100m investment in the UK space industrial base, looking to build new capability and help ensure the UK can “defend its critical assets in space”. It comes at a time when the prospect of closer UK-Europe ties puts pressure on Britain’s vital defence and space relationship with the US. LM’s move is a reminder to UK decision-makers of the necessity, and the advantage, of not just retaining but deepening military and industrial space collaboration with America.

• Orbital Warfare, a bold term that only recently gained prominence even in the United States, is now being mainstreamed at the Allied level. Led by the US Space Command, Australia, Canada, France, Germany the UK and New Zealand -- which conduct defence space exercises together under Operation Olympic Defender -- are set to develop a concept of operations (CONOPS) for orbital warfare. This shows the growing realisation and acceptance among allied nations that preparing for space war is not science fiction but a pressing real-world imperative.

FROM ASTROANALYTICA

Orbital Foresight is produced by AstroAnalytica, a London-based geopolitical space intelligence firm focused on space power, strategic competition, and the future of the orbital economy.

We help governments, investors, defence organisations, and industry leaders understand how developments in space are reshaping power, risk, and opportunity.

To discuss strategic advisory support, research projects, speaking engagements, or partnerships, write to us at contact@astroanalytica.com.

Learn more about AstroAnalytica's research, analysis, and advisory services:

VISIT ASTROANALYTICA

ORBITAL REFLECTION

The new Great Power rivalry also began to extend into outer space, which had long been an area of international cooperation. This was not surprising, as many terrestrial systems-such as communications networks-depend on satellites in orbit. The strategic importance of these was amply demonstrated by the way in which Elon Musk's Starlink infrastructure kept Ukraine ‘connected' after its access to the internet was disrupted by the Russian invasion. Outer space was also seen as a potential source of minerals, food, and even land for colonization. It was also conceived as a launchpad and a conduit, a staging ground to attack the enemy from above. The emerging struggle for outer space, in other words, in many ways resembled that of the earlier Great Powers in Asia, Africa, and the Americas, where they had sought resources to leverage against each other. As the head of the PRC's Lunar Exploration Programme, Ye Peijian, put it, 'If we don't go there [to outer space] now even though we are capable of doing so, then we will be blamed by our descendants.’ ‘If others go there,’ he continued, ‘then they will take over?’

— Brendan Simms, The Return of the Great Powers (2026)

Need a deeper assessment? AstroAnalytica provides bespoke decision support amidst growing space sector complexity and risk, strategic forecasting, and advisory support for government, defence, investment, and industry clients.

STRATEGIC ASSESSMENT

Recent reports that multiple Russian satellites have manoeuvred near a commercial ICEYE synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite should not be dismissed as an isolated incident. Nor should the incident immediately be interpreted as evidence that Russia has developed a practical wartime doctrine for physically hunting commercial constellations satellite-by-satellite in orbit. The deeper significance lies elsewhere.

The incident appears to point toward an emerging Russian approach to orbital competition that blends signalling, operational experimentation, coercive ambiguity, and political intimidation into something more coherent than many Western analysts probably feel comfortable admitting. Moscow is, likely, not rehearsing a literal one-for-one wartime campaign of physically hunting down commercial satellites across proliferated constellations. That would make little operational sense. What may be emerging instead is a broader method of space-enabled geopolitical confrontation in which orbital pressure, ambiguity, intimidation, and persistent probing become normal features of strategic competition.

Background and Context

Context matters greatly here.

ICEYE is not simply another commercial Earth observation company. It is a Finnish company operating within a profoundly altered European strategic environment. Finland’s accession to NATO fundamentally transforms the northern European security landscape and remains deeply resented in Moscow. At the same time, ICEYE has become closely associated with Western and Ukrainian ISR support during the war in Ukraine, where commercial SAR imagery increasingly forms part of wider coalition warfighting architectures. ICEYE now provides data directly to NATO headquarters and continues rapidly expanding its sovereign defense partnerships across Europe, including providing satellites to the Dutch, Swedish, and Portuguese militaries.

More recently still, Poland, one of NATO’s frontline states facing Russia, has integrated ICEYE into the backbone of its emerging space-based ISR capability. In May 2026, ICEYE formally handed over four SAR satellites to the Polish Armed Forces under the POLSARIS/MikroSAR programme.

From a Russian strategic perspective, this likely changes the threat profile of ICEYE entirely.

The company increasingly occupies an ambiguous but strategically important position somewhere between commercial infrastructure, allied military support capability, and coalition ISR architecture. Under such conditions, Russian proximity operations may represent not simply technical experimentation, but deliberate signaling directed simultaneously at Finland, Poland, NATO, European commercial space actors, insurers, investors, and politically hesitant Western governments.

Russian activity around ICEYE-X36

At first glance, reports that four or even five Russian satellites may be manoeuvring around a single ICEYE satellite (ICEYE-X36) appear operationally inefficient and strategically unsustainable. Modern proliferated commercial constellations are specifically designed to complicate such approaches. ICEYE itself has launched roughly 70 satellites since 2018 and is scaling toward production rates approaching one satellite per week.

Attempting physically to neutralise every relevant commercial spacecraft in wartime would prove prohibitively expensive, operationally exhausting, and strategically impractical, which leads to the likelihood that the threat of physical destruction may not be the point.

Instead, the Russian activity likely serves several overlapping purposes simultaneously:

• operational rehearsal for future co-orbital counterspace missions,

• testing command-and-control and proximity operation techniques,

• intelligence collection of ICEYE’s SAR characteristics,

• strategic signaling toward NATO,

• intimidation of commercial operators,

• and normalisation of persistent orbital coercion.

Importantly, this behaviour also differs in important respects from earlier Russian co-orbital activities. Since at least 2010, Russia has conducted extensive rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO) testing in both LEO and GEO involving systems associated with the Nivelir and potentially Burevestnik programmes. Earlier incidents typically involve one or two “inspector” satellites manoeuvring near U.S. government spacecraft or releasing sub-satellites or projectiles. The Kosmos-2542/2543 incident in 2020, for example, involved close manoeuvres near an American reconnaissance satellite and the later release of a projectile-like object that U.S. officials characterised as a non-destructive antisatellite (ASAT) test.

The ICEYE incident appears to be somewhat different. The apparent use of four or five satellites suggests something potentially more sophisticated than simple stalking behaviour. One possibility is that Russia may be experimenting with forms of co-orbital interference or electronic disruption against SAR systems rather than preparing for a purely kinetic attack. If correct, this interpretation makes considerable strategic sense.

Synthetic aperture radar systems are fundamentally electromagnetic systems whose military value depends upon transmitting, receiving, and processing radar emissions. Multiple satellites manoeuvring in coordinated proximity could potentially support:

• signal characterisation,

• emissions intelligence,

• geometry testing,

• distributed sensing,

• electronic support measures,

• or experimentation with localised interference techniques.

The Russian satellites may not all be “attackers” in the kinetic, conventional sense. Some may instead support collection, calibration, relay, or command-and-control experimentation as part of wider distributed orbital electronic warfare concepts. This would align closely with broader Russian military preferences for ambiguity, a heavy reliance on electronic warfare, tendencies to engage in asymmetric competition coupled with coercive signalling, and escalation management below the threshold of overt conflict.

It would also help explain why Russia chose a politically sensitive but non-American commercial target such as ICEYE. ICEYE SAR satellites are strategically relevant and operationally useful to Ukraine and NATO, but sit within a more ambiguous escalation environment than a direct challenge to a U.S. government SAR satellite. […]

This is an excerpt from a longer AstroAnalytica analysis examining the strategic implications of Russian proximity operations against commercial space infrastructure.

READ THE FULL ANALYSIS ON OUR WEBSITE

DECISION SIGNALS

Recent developments that indicate significant strategic changes in the space domain with impact on government policies, investment choices and business decisions:

1. Germany is positioning itself as the gravitational centre of a new Central European space-security ecosystem.

This ecosystem is designed not merely for cooperation, but for long-term strategic autonomy from the United States. The emergence of a German-led “continental space bloc” integrating launch, ISR, SATCOM, training, and command functions signals the early institutional foundations of a more geopolitically independent European spacepower architecture. The continental space bloc includes Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Luxembourg. This is a warning that allied dependence on the U.S. for space support can no longer be assumed indefinitely, and – additionally – that Austria and Switzerland are participating despite their longstanding neutrality. For industry, it signals growing demand for sovereign European alternatives across the entire military-space value chain.

2. The Swiss-led ALPSTAR points to the emergence of a distinctly European model of military-space power.

This model will be federated, distributed, dual-use, and resilience-centric. Rather than replicating the vertically integrated American or Chinese approach, Switzerland and its partners are building a mesh-like sovereignty architecture in which national satellites, ground stations, and ISR capabilities are pooled into interoperable networks. This may prove more politically sustainable, and operationally survivable, than traditional monolithic sovereign constellations. In practice, ALPSTAR could become an early prototype for a broader continental European security space ecosystem operating increasingly independently of both U.S. and French strategic gatekeeping.

3. The SaxaVord (Shetland Islands, UK) and Andøya (Norway) launch sites reveal that Europe’s future spacepower architecture is likely to be organised less around EU political boundaries than around the strategic geography of the European High North.

The continent’s most valuable launch corridors, ISR pathways, and Arctic surveillance infrastructures increasingly lie in a Nordic-North Atlantic arc spanning both EU and non-EU states. This creates a structural tension at the heart of European strategic autonomy, especially EU efforts such as the EU Space Act and other regulatory measures: Europe cannot achieve meaningful resilience in space without deep dependence upon infrastructure controlled by politically external but strategically indispensable partners such as the UK and Norway.

WEAK LINKS

Our regular look at vulnerabilities and chokepoints that impact risk across the space enterprise – military, civil, and commercial.

The Arctic-Space Chokepoint

Europe’s emerging Arctic launch and ground-segment ecosystem reveals a classic “thin waist” dynamic in spacepower. While satellites, ISR constellations, and sovereign launch ambitions are proliferating rapidly, a disproportionate amount of operational value still flows through a relatively small number of geographically constrained northern nodes:

• Arctic launch sites such as Andøya Spaceport, Esrange Space Center, and SaxaVord Spaceport,

• polar ground stations such as Svalbard Satellite Station,

• and associated Arctic communications, logistics, energy, and undersea cable infrastructure.

These northern corridors increasingly form the connective tissue between terrestrial geopolitics and space operations. The strategic implication is that Europe’s future space resilience may depend less on the number of satellites deployed than on the survivability, political accessibility, and operational integration of a handful of Arctic infrastructure chokepoints.

In practice, the High North is evolving into a strategic “thin waist” through which global ISR, missile warning, Earth observation, and sovereign launch architectures increasingly pass. This also exposes a deeper paradox: Europe’s strategic autonomy in space is becoming structurally dependent upon geographically peripheral but operationally indispensable Arctic infrastructure, much of it outside the EU itself.

SPACE-THINK

AstroAnalytica’s spotlight on emerging space doctrine, spacepower theory and wider space strategic thinking that applies to all stakeholders across the space sector.

The Many Restraints of Commercial Space

Commercial space is no longer outside great power competition; it is now part of the strategic balance shaping it, writes Wendy Whitman Cobb of the U.S. Air Force’s Air University. Proliferated commercial constellations such as Starlink increase the political, economic, and operational costs of attacking space infrastructure, creating what Whitman Cobb calls multiple reinforcing restraints on conflict. But this cuts both ways. The same commercial systems that strengthen deterrence by denial also blur the line between civilian and military targets, accelerating the fusion of private infrastructure with national strategy. The result is a defining paradox of modern spacepower: commercialisation may simultaneously stabilise and militarise orbit.

ON OUR RADAR

Other significant developments we have been tracking recently:

• Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) managed to smuggle Chinese satellite communication terminals and other ground and user equipment to Iran via a commercial free zone in the UAE late last year, according to the Financial Times;

• Sweden is becoming a European test-case for “fast GEOINT sovereignty” building a commercially accelerated, nationally owned, allied-interoperable space-based ISR (optical and SAR) constellation sourced from the U.S. and Finland;

• Europe’s small satellite sector is increasingly constrained not by institutional shortcomings. Europe continues to produce world-class space technologies and startups, yet fragmented regulation, slow licensing, weak venture capital ecosystems, and legacy procurement cultures are preventing these firms from scaling into globally dominant actors;

• Europe increasingly understands the geopolitical necessity of resilience, yet still often approaches sovereignty as a regulatory and innovation problem rather than an industrial one, in other words, “sovereignty can’t be vibecoded.”

• The orbital data centre boom reveals the accelerating convergence of AI hype, venture capital speculation, and spacepower strategy, but also highlights a growing disconnect between commercial technological imagination and actual national security requirements;

• The space economy lacks the tools and mechanisms for everything from price discovery through to reliably quantifying risk against accepted benchmarks. Space Markets intends to start doing this in the coming months.

FROM ASTROANALYTICA

Orbital Foresight is produced by AstroAnalytica, a London-based geopolitical space intelligence firm focused on space power, strategic competition, and the future of the orbital economy.

We help governments, investors, defence organisations, and industry leaders understand how developments in space are reshaping power, risk, and opportunity.

To discuss strategic advisory support, research projects, speaking engagements, or partnerships, write to us at contact@astroanalytica.com.

Learn more about AstroAnalytica's research, analysis, and advisory services:

VISIT ASTROANALYTICA

ORBITAL REFLECTION

We are vulnerable to prediction because we are wishful, anxious creatures who crave for certainty. One of our greatest assets is our imagination, which allows us to dream up better worlds and pursue them. But that same imagination strikes terror into us, keeping us up at night, wondering about what awaits us.

— Carissa Véliz, Prophecy: Prediction, Power and the Fight for the Future, from Ancient Oracles to AI (2026).

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