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NOT ENOUGH WAR ON THE GROUND, US IS TAKING IT TO SPACE  
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Stavroula Pabst
April 5, 2024
Responsible Statecraft
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_ The military industrial complex is suiting up for a new arms race,
far beyond the stratosphere _

, Wonder AI

 

Elon Musk’s space company SpaceX recently secured
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a classified contract to build an extensive network of “spy
satellites” for an undisclosed U.S. intelligence agency, with one
source telling Reuters
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that “no one can hide” under the prospective network’s reach.

While the deal suggests the space company, which currently operates
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half the active satellites orbiting Earth, has warmed to U.S. national
security agencies, it’s not the first Washington investment in
conflict-forward space machinery. Rather, the U.S. is funding or
otherwise supporting a range of defense contractors and startups
working to create a new generation of space-bound weapons,
surveillance systems, and adjacent technologies.

In other words, America is hell-bent on a new arms race — in space.

Space arms, then and now
Attempts to regulate weapons’ presence and use in space span
decades. Responding to an intense, Cold War-era arms race between the
U.S. and Soviet Union, the 1967 Outer Space Treaty established that
space, while free for all countries to explore and use, was limited to
peaceful endeavors. Almost 60 years later, the Outer Space Treaty’s
vague language regarding military limitations in space, as space
policy experts Michelle L.D. Hanlon and Greg Autry highlight
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“leave more than enough room for interpretation to result in
conflict.”

Stonewalling
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subsequent international efforts to limit the militarization of space
(though the U.S. is participating
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in a new U.N. working group
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on the subject), Washington’s interest in space exploration and
adjacent weapons technologies also goes back decades. Many may recall
President Ronald Reagan’s 1983 Strategic Defense Initiative
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was established to develop land-, air-, and space-based missile
defense systems to deter missile or nuclear weapons attacks against
the U.S. Cynically referred to by critics as the “Star Wars”
program, many SDI initiatives were ultimately canned due to
prohibitive costs and technological limitations.

And while the Pentagon established Space Command
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the Space Force
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new branch of the military
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“focused solely
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superiority in the space domain,” was launched in 2019, signaling
renewed emphasis on space militarization as U.S. policy.

Weapons contractors cash in 
Long-term American interest in space war tech now manifests in
ambitious projects, where defense companies and startups are lining up
for military contracts to create a new generation of space weaponry
and adjacent tech, including space vehicles
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hypersonic rockets
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and extensive surveillance and communications projects.

For starters, Space Force’s Space Development Agency
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Sierra Space [[link removed]] contracts worth $2.5
billion
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to build satellites for the U.S. military’s Proliferated Warfighter
Space Architecture
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(PWSA), a constellation of hundreds of satellites
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built out on tranches
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that provide various warfighting capabilities
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and transmission of critical wartime communications, into low-Earth
orbit.

The PWSA will serve as the backbone of the Pentagon’s Joint
All-Domain Command and Control project
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an effort to bolster warfighting capacities and decision-making
processes by facilitating
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“information advantage at the speed of relevance.”

Other efforts are just as sci-fi-esque. Zoning in on hypersonic
weapons systems and parts, for example, RTX (formerly Raytheon) and
Northrop Grumman have collaborated to secure a DARPA contract for a
Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapons Concept
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where scramjet-powered missiles can travel at hypersonic speeds (Mach
5 or faster) for offensive purposes.

And Aerospace startup True Anomaly [[link removed]],
which was founded by military officers
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and has received funding from the U.S. Space Force
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to the tune of over $17 million, is developing space weapons and
adjacent conflict-forward tools. An example is True Anomaly’s Jackal
Autonomous Orbital Vehicle [[link removed]], an
imaging satellite able to take on, according to True Anomaly CEO Even
Rogers
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“rendezvous and proximity operations missions” with
“uncooperative” targets.

As True Anomaly finds fiscal success, accruing over $100 million in a
December 2023 series B fundraising round
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from venture capitalists
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including Eclipse Ventures and ACME Capital, other aerospace start-ups
are flooding the market with the assistance of the U.S. government,
both in funding and other critical partnerships.

Take how Firehawk Aerospace [[link removed]] — which
wants to [[link removed]]
“create the rocket system of the future” to “enab[le] the next
generation of aerospace and defense systems” — partnered with NASA
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in 2021 to test rocket engines at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in
Mississippi. It recently secured Army Applications Laboratory
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and U.S. Air Force
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Small Business Innovation Research Awards to advance developments in
its rocket motors and engines.

And data and satellite-focused American space tech company Capella
Space [[link removed]], a contractor
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for federal agencies including the Air and Space Forces, specializes
in reconnaissance and powerful surveillance tools, including
geospatial intelligence [[link removed]]
and Synthetic Aperture Radar monitoring that help national security
officials identify myriad security risks. In early 2023, Capella Space
even formed a subsidiary, Capella Federal
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to provide federal clients with additional access to Synthetic
Aperture Radar imagery services.

We need diplomacy, not space superiority
The funding of expensive, futuristic space surveillance and weapons
projects indicates the U.S.’s eagerness to maintain superiority,
where military personnel posit such advancements are critical within
the context of both a “space race” and an increasingly tumultuous
geopolitical climate, if not the possibility of war in space outright.

As Space Force General Chance Saltzman declared at the recent Mitchell
Institute Spacepower Security Forum
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we lose." Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee in
late February, U.S. Space Force General Stephen N. Whiting explained
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that the U.S. Space Command must bolster its military capacities
through increased personnel training and investments in relevant
technologies so that the U.S. is “ready if deterrence fails.”

While upping its own military capacities, however, Washington is
simultaneously pushing
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against other countries’ anti-satellite weapons testing, a
capability the U.S. already has
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What’s more, the U.S. recently accused
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Russia of developing possibly nuclear anti-satellite weaponry
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in violation of the Outer Space Treaty. But the accusations, which
Russia denies
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are vague
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And, as Todd Harrison of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary
Assessments and Clayton Swope of the Center for Strategic and
International Studies posit
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Russia’s use of such a weapon seems unlikely as it is “effectively
[a] kamikaze attack
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and would likely take out many of Russia’s own satellites while
prompting major retaliation from adversaries.

In any case, such pointing fingers, when coupled with ongoing space
deterrence and weapons proliferation efforts, does little to advance
genuine diplomacy, where states could instead discuss, on equal terms,
how space should be used and shared amongst nations.

Ultimately, weapons and aerospace companies’ efforts have launched a
new generation of weaponry and adjacent tech — buoyed by consistent
support from a “deterrence”-focused U.S. As a result, the military
industrial complex has further expanded into the domain of space,
where defense companies have new opportunities to score lucrative
weapons contracts and theoretically even push for more conflict.

Stavroula Pabst is a writer, comedian, and media PhD student at the
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens in Athens, Greece. Her
writing has appeared in publications including the Grayzone,
Reductress, and the Harvard Business Review.

* military industrial complex
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* weapons in space
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* space
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