On Sunday Japanese lawmakers aboard a Japan-flagged vessel were escorted by Japan's Coast Guard as Chinese Coast Guard vessels confronted the group near the uninhabited Senkaku Islands. Images via VOA..

What’s in this episode

On Sunday, April 28, according to The Japan Times, China used its Coast Guard to confront another U.S. ally over another uninhabited, yet strategic, group of tiny islands. This instance involved a group of Japanese lawmakers, who were on an “inspection mission” to the Senkaku Islands, that China officially called an "infringement and provocation".

There are competing narratives about which nation owns this group of eight islands, but just by looking at the map, control of these islands is important to the defense of Taiwan and Japan, who also do not agree on who has sovereignty.

What’s more, it is strongly believed that proximate to these islands and below the seabed lies “what may be the world's largest hydrocarbon reserves,’ according to a report published by Universidad De Navarra and confirmed by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

It is just this type of armed confrontation that has progressively ratcheted-up concerns of the United States, Britain, Australia, and others, about China’s increasingly belligerent operations to impose its illegal territorial claims in the Pacific region. The frequency and severity of run-ins with Chinese vessels, government-owned and private, is also the basis of the AUKUS agreement, a trilateral strategic defense alliance between the U.S., Britain, and Australia.

Left: Hearing in session, July 2015, Peace Palace, The Hague. Notice China's table on the right is vacant. Middle: Map of the neighborhood. Right: A Chinese Coast Guard vessel using a water cannon on the Philippine resupply vessel Unaizah Mae 4 on March 23, 2024.

In 2013 The Philippines successfully lodged and prosecuted a claim against China regarding activities in the Spratly Islands and other reefs with The Hague’s Permanent Court of Arbitration . The court in 2016 “concluded that there was no legal basis for China to claim historic rights” and “found that China had violated the Philippines’ sovereign rights.”

While the U.S. has been paring down its defense budget, including that of the U.S. Space Force, which officials say is due to Congressional budgetary dysfunction, the other two AUKUS nations, Australia and Britain, plan to increase their defense budgets and investment in space systems.

U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced this week his government’s intention “to steadily increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by the end of the decade – reaching £87 billion a year in 2030”, and to scale up space capability research and development. Earlier this month, Australia published its new National Defence Strategy, wherein the government wrote that it would deliver “Space capabilities that enhance intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, provide resilient communications and counter emerging space threats.”

Left: Australia, Japan, the Philippines, and the United States, conducted a Maritime Cooperative Activity, April 7, 2024. Middle: President Joe Biden greets British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the AUKUS bilateral meeting in San Diego, Calif, March 13, 2023. Right: Deep Space Advanced Radar Capability concept.

AUKUS started out in 2021 as a deal to provide conventionally-armed nuclear-powered submarines to Australia, the pact’s first pillar. Pillar 2 requires all to develop advanced capabilities, which includes space systems. It’s under that second part that the three nations in December launched their Deep Space Advanced Radar Capability (DARC) initiative, “to detect, track, identify and characterize objects” in geosynchronous orbit and beyond.

Getting back to Japan, earlier this month, the U.S., Britain, and Australia in a joint statement announced that they were “considering cooperation with Japan on advanced capabilities projects.”

On Wednesday, April 25, Wu Qian, a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of National Defense said, “We firmly oppose relevant countries cobbling together exclusive groupings, building bilateral or multilateral military alliances targeting China, creating division and confrontation and stoking bloc confrontation. The Asia-Pacific is a big stage for peace and development, not a wrestling ground for geopolitical competition." … Queue eye-rolling. ಠ_ಠ.

And if this wasn’t enough, China also just reorganized its military structure, essentially breaking up its Strategic Support Forces into three distinct arms: the Cyberspace Force, the Information Support Force, and the Aerospace Force - China’s equivalent to the U.S. Space Force. While analysts see the efficiencies under this new construct, they also wonder if this is a way of rooting out corruption or emasculating those who may not be completely on board with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s world view.

Thank you to our generous sponsor, TE Connectivity!

- When the mission is critical, so are the parts. TE Connectivity’s components are exactingly engineered, rigorously tested and certified by major space agencies. Learn more at te.com/space. -

Who’s in this episode

Left, Malcolm Davis, right, Juliana Suess.

• Malcolm Davis - Senior Policy Analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute

• Juliana Suess - Research Fellow on Space Security at the Royal United Services Institute, and host of the podcast “War in Space”

Some interesting reading

• Is this further evidence that Russia is developing a space-based nuclear anti-satellite weapon? Russia vetoes UN vote on stopping arms race in outer space, while China abstained, as reported here on Wednesday, April 24, by Christy Cooney of BBC News. “The resolution also would have called on all Member States not to develop nuclear weapons specifically designed to be placed in orbit,” according to a White House released statement attributed to National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. The remaining 13 members of U.N. Security Council affirmed the U.S. sponsored resolution.

• Here is a video of Juliana Suess’s April 17 oral evidence on the Implications of the war in Ukraine for UK Defence before the House of Lords International Relations and Defence Committee. It’s brilliant!

• Articles from Malcolm Davis, all in the past week :

  • National Defence Strategy: a missed opportunity for space

  • National Defence Strategy: Impactful projection constrained

  • National Defence Strategy: preparing slowly to strike far

• “RIP, SSF: Unpacking the PLA’s Latest Restructuring” by By Ying Yu Lin and Tzu-Hao Liao in The Diplomat is a worthwhile read into the practicalities if China’s military restructuring and what was once the PLA’s Strategic Support Force.

• “US to reduce licensing by 80% for UK, Australia to boost AUKUS”, from Reuters details how, “The U.S. Commerce Department is scaling back export control requirements for Australia and the United Kingdom to foster defense trade under the three countries' AUKUS security pact, reducing licensing burdens for trade valued at more than $7.5 billion.”

Have a great week.

Ad Astra,

Laura

Image: NASA

What’s in this episode

This episode is dedicated to the latest edition of the “State of The Space Industrial Base Report”. It is a unique take on space and national security, and it has just been published jointly by the U.S. Space Force, the Defense Innovation Unit, and the Air Force Research Laboratory.

I really cannot recommend it enough. It is the go-to guide for policy makers who wish to understand what members of the commercial space sector are passionate about and their concerns for the future.

This edition of the State of the Space Industrial Base comes at the very time when the Secretary of the Department of the Air Force Frank Kendall and Space Force Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman have been testifying before Armed Services and Appropriations subcommittees in the Senate and the House of Representatives. The topic has been the President’s Budget Request For FY 2025.

As I have said before, Kendall and Saltzman are in a tough position, because they must give legislators ground truth on China’s growing tactical advances, while also defending a budget proposal that the secretary has admitted will slow down Space Force modernization.

The State of the Space Industrial Base Workshop, hosted by New Space Nexus in Albuquerque, New Mexico, May 2023.

This report gives some unvarnished truth from the commercial sector’s perspective. It is the product of workshops held in locations near the space industrial base in states like California, Washington, and Florida.

If you are interested in attending one, the next State of the Space Industrial Base workshop is this May, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and is organized and hosted by New Space Nexus.

Thank you to our generous sponsor, TE Connectivity!

- When the mission is critical, so are the parts. TE Connectivity’s components are exactingly engineered, rigorously tested and certified by major space agencies. Learn more at te.com/space. -

Who’s in this episode

Left, Maj. Gen. Steve "Bucky" Butow, and right, Peter Garretson.

• Maj. Gen. Steve “Bucky” Butow - Space Portfolio Director, Defense Innovation Unit’s; Co-Author of the “State of the Space Industrial Base Report”

• Peter Garretson, Senior Fellow, American Foreign Policy Council; and Co-Author of the book “The Next Space Race: A Blueprint for American Primacy”

Some interesting reading

1 - “China Is Battening Down For The Gathering Storm Over Taiwan”, by Mike Studeman is a very well executed and sobering piece, that weaves together a number of strategic indicators. Studman is the former commander of the Office of Naval Intelligence and director for intelligence (J2) of the Indo-Pacific Command and is now MITRE’s first national security fellow.

2 - ICYMI: The Wall Street Journal’s investigative piece “The Black Market That Delivers Elon Musk’s Starlink to U.S. Foes” details how “The satellite-internet devices are helping Russian fighters in Ukraine and paramilitary forces in Sudan; SpaceX hasn’t shut them off.” This is a team effort that has produced deep reporting and great writing by Thomas Grove, Nicholas Bariyo, Micah Maidenberg, Emma Scott, and Ian Lovett.

The team writes, “Sudanese authorities have contacted SpaceX and requested help in regulating the use of Starlink, including by allowing the military to turn off service areas where it was helping the RSF. Starlink never responded to the request, Sudanese officials said.”

So this week, on April 24, the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America filed a 13-page brief with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), opposing “the allocation of additional spectrum to SpaceX.” A shorter version can be read here on Yahoo!Finance.

Ad Astra,

Laura

Playing catch-up

Hey there! As I wrote in an earlier post it has been, and remains, a really busy period. Nevertheless, I want to share with you an interesting episode, recorded in March, from the Air Force Academy’s Polaris Hall.

On March 5, the U.S. Space Command’s Office of the Staff Judge Advocate and the U.S. Air Force Academy’s Law, Technology and Warfare Research Cell brought me to Colorado Springs, Colorado, for their USSPACECOM Legal Conference 2024.

This was the fourth annual gathering of legal minds from across the United States that concern themselves with the intersection of military and space law. My task was to shepherd the event’s second panel discussion, titled, “Mitigating Congestion and Space Debris: The Interagency Guidelines and Beyond”.

As is my penchant, I focused much of the discourse on the “Beyond”, where technology currently under development, is going to necessitate the “prototyping” and “road-testing” of national policies and multilateral international agreements that have yet to be drafted. I wanted to understand the legal challenges posed by salvage operations.

Under the Outer Space Treaty, a man-made space object, no matter its operational status or whether it poses a hazard to space traffic, remains the “property” of the nation that sent it into space. So a defunct satellite, a spent second stage fuselage, or even the tool bag that was lost during a spacewalk last November, cannot be “interfered with”, or touched, without explicit permission from the nation that owns it.

We have the tested technology to clean up space junk. Soon we will have a space foundry that can recycle space junk into useful and monetized commodities for fueling spacecraft and building space stations.

So how could salvage and recycling operations actually work… Legally? Without it being considered an aggressive adversarial activity?

You can listen or watch this discussion. I’ve included the Academy’s video directly below.

Thank you to our generous sponsor, TE Connectivity!

- When the mission is critical, so are the parts. TE Connectivity’s components are exactingly engineered, rigorously tested and certified by major space agencies. Learn more at te.com/space. -

Who’s in this episode

• Charles Stotler - Professor of Practice and Director, Center for Air and Space Law, University of Mississippi School of Law

• Gabriel Swiney - Director Policy, Advocacy, and Int’l Division, Office of Space Commerce, NOAA, U.S. Department of Commerce

• Lee Steinke - Chief Operating Officer, CisLunar Industries

• Victor Gardner - Global Head of PreSales and President, LeoLabs Federal, Inc.

What’s caught my eye

• "World first UK prototype could pave the way for constant energy all the time - from space", Thomas Moore writes for SkyNews.com that, “Oxfordshire-based Space Solar plans to power more than a million homes by the 2030s with mile-wide complex of mirrors and solar panels orbiting 22,000 miles above the planet.”

• In the Eurasian Times article “Axe Falls On China’s Secret “Space Base”, Ashish Dangwal In The Americas; Argentina May Inspect Espacio Lejano Station”, Ashish Dangwal explains an interesting sovereignty and security development in Argentina. To give some more context on the situation, I recommend listening to the episode, “What You Need to Know About The Great Ground Station Game Part 2”. and if you want to understand what’s happening in the High North, I recommend listening to “What You Need to Know About The Great Ground Station Game Part 1”.

• On Monday, April 15, Switzerland became the 37th Artemis Accords signatory, followed by Sweden on Tuesday. The Artemis Accords is a U.S.-led non-binding agreement, wherein signatories agree to adhere to a set of principles of responsible behavior. Internationally, it’s seen as a geopolitical counterpoint to China’s International Lunar Research Station, which counts Russia, Venezuela, Egypt, Thailand, and others as partners. In a possible snub, earlier this month Turkey, a NATO ally, submitted an application to join the ILRS project in hopes of becoming the 10th partner nation.

Ad Astra!

Laura

Left, U.S. Space Force Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance "Salty" Saltzman; and right, U.S. Department of the Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, testifying before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, April 9, 2024. Image: Space Force website.

What’s in this episode

Hey there!

It’s been another busy week of appearances, reports, and another new policy on integrating commercial space capabilities, but this time from the U.S. Space Force. This episode starts by focussing on a Senate Appropriations hearing because Congress and the White House will negotiate the final budget, pledging dollars to policy.

While the government and consultants started dropping reports on Monday, the real churn started the next day, on the Hill. On Tuesday U.S. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall told the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense that China’s space capabilities were essentially on par, or close to it, with the United States.

“Our cushion is gone. We are out of time… Continued failure to provide on-time authorities and appropriations, as you both noted, will leave the Air Force and Space Force inadequately prepared.” - SECAF Frank Kendall

Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, April 9, 2024. Image: Space Force website.

The SECAF argued the FY’25 Presidential Budget Request for the Space Force, which prescribes pumping the brakes with a cut of $1.5b in 2024 dollars, is really the result of the 2023 Fiscal Responsibility Act.

It has been argued, this budget could provide Space Force with an opportunity to offload some programs that are deemed low-performers. On the flip-side, some of this podcast’s guests say this could also mean less effort and money for modernization, developing new capabilities, and growing the number of people needed to cover down on what Subcommittee Chairman Sen. Jon Tester described as “more duties, responsibilities, programs”.

As the budget - the money, the policy, and personnel - will affect the Space Force’s deterrent ability and quality, defense attachés representing friends and foes pay attention to these hearings. As so should we.

U.S. Space Force Chief of Space Operation Gen. Chance “Salty” Saltzman addressing Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on April 10, 2024. Image: via LinkedIn.

This episode is about just what the administration is communicating strategically and geopolitically. It also includes what the SECAf and the USSF CSO said before a crowd of thousands on Wednesday, at the Space Symposium, in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where they went even deeper into China’s capabilities, and how they envisage force modernization with the integration of commercial space capabilities.

“In space operations, we have become more comfortable with using commercial capabilities to add capacity than we have with fully integrated commercial capabilities into our force design. It is this basic thought that has led to the U.S. Space Force's “Commercial Space Strategy”. - CSO Gen. Chance “Salty” Saltzman

Thank you to our generous sponsor, TE Connectivity!

- When the mission is critical, so are the parts. TE Connectivity’s components are exactingly engineered, rigorously tested and certified by major space agencies. Learn more at te.com/space. -

Who’s in this episode

Left: Namrata Goswami. Right: Charles Galbreath.

• Namrata Goswami - an independent scholar on space policy and great power politics and co-author of the book “Scramble for the Skies: The Great Power Competition to Control the Resources of Outer Space”

• Charles Galbreath, a Senior Resident Fellow for Space Studies at the Mitchell Institute’s Spacepower Advantage Center of Excellence, who authored the recent report “Securing Cislunar Space and the First Island Off the Coast of Earth”

Some great news!

Scott Saddler

Scott Sadler’s back! NewSpace Nexus launched the “NewSpace Sadler Report”.  Until about mid-December 2023, those of us who follow Space Force developments were treated to Scott’s work. His curated newsletter then and now, in its new Home with NewSpace Nexus (previously known as NewSpace New Mexico), provides timely updates on what’s being published in a variety of media outlets, what’s happening in Congress, and provides information on important future events.

Casey DeRaad, Founder and CEO of NewSpace Nexus, wrote, “He joins the mission to Unite & Ignite Space!” NewSpace Nexus, is a terrific space start-up platform, located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, “is a 501(c)(3) non-profit accelerating the pace of space innovation by uniting and igniting the industry.”

Links for policy wonks

• To coincide with the FY’25 budget testimony, the Space Force CSO rolled out the “Space Force Commercial Space Strategy, April 10, at Space Space Symposium.

• The Space Force strategy follows and is harmonized with the Department of Defense’s first “Commercial Space Integration Strategy”, which, according to the press release, “outlines the department's efforts to effectively integrate commercial space solutions into national security space architectures.” In last week’s episode, The Aerospace Corporation’s Robin Dickey provided us with a very fine synopsis.

• For your convenience, here is the National Defense Strategy, the Nuclear Posture Review and the Missile Defense Review 2022, which the two above space strategies support.

• This is the “Overview - FY2025 Defense Budget”.

• This the Air and Space Forces Association statement that followed the release of the FY’25 Presidential Budget Request.

• I’m chuffed! Get your copy of the newly-released “2023 State of the Space Industrial Base (SSIB) Report”! This report, made public on April 8, 2024, is jointly published by the U.S. Space Force, the Air Force Research Laboratory, and the Defense Innovation Unit, and edited by none other than The DownLink Podcast regular, Peter Garretson. He was last on the podcast a few weeks ago, speaking about the budget request for the Space Force.

  I’m chuffed, because after opening it for the third time, I lazily skimmed down the list of folks acknowledged for their contributions and found my name. Who knew? How cool is that?

  It’s a true honor to be acknowledged in such company. Thank you, Peter.

Have a great week!

Ad Astra!

Laura

What’s in this episode

I apologize that this is not a longer note, but this week is rammed with important events, such as this morning’s testimony before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense by the U.S. Space Force Chief of Space Operations; Space Symposium; and the Navy League’s Global Maritime Exposition, Sea-Air-Space.

Sticking with the importance of appropriations, a.k.a. money, welcome to the start of the space economy’s second financial quarter, or “Crazyville”. The the president’s proposed budget for FY’24 prescribes cuts for both NASA and the Space Force, both of which have programs that are at critical junctures in development. We are, after all, supposed to be going back to the moon this decade, to stay!

If those cuts stand, two of this week’s guests predict that there could be long-ranging ramifications for the U.S. commercial space sector, especially for those small- and medium-sized companies that are developing new capabilities the Department of Defense has repeatedly claimed it needs. While I do not have clear eyesight on the possible effects on those companies working with NASA and on the lunar Artemis Program, my gut tells me this is not good.

To further highlight the DoD’s stated desire to use commercially developed capabilities, it released a new “Commercial Space Integration Strategy”. At the top of this episode we explore just what this tin’s label really says. I wonder, how will this strategy be administered in a time when it looks like the Biden Administration is “pumping the brakes”, according to George Pullen, Chief Economist, MilkyWay Economy.

- When the mission is critical, so are the parts. TE Connectivity’s components are exactingly engineered, rigorously tested and certified by major space agencies. Learn more at te.com/space. -

Who’s in this episode

From left to right: Chris Quilty, George Pullen, and Robin Dickey

• Chris Quilty - Founder, Quilty Space

• George Pullen - Chief Economist at MilkyWay Economy

• Robin Dickey - Policy Analyst, The Aerospace Corporation’s Center for Space Policy and Strategy

Stay tuned to this discussion about money and policy. Coming up we will have Namrata Goswami, an independent scholar on space policy and great power politics and co-author of the book “Scramble for the Skies”, and Charles Galbreath, Senior Resident Fellow for Space Studies at the Mitchell Institute's Spacepower Advantage Center of Excellence, who will discuss what the policies and the budgets are really communicating to friends and foes alike.

Ad Astra!

Laura