They continue similar priorities and themes to the previous coalition government’s 2020 Defence Strategic Update and Force Structure Plan on the space domain. As with those documents, the 2024 NDS and IIP highlight the importance of space as a critical enabler for terrestrial military operations and an operational domain in a multi-domain approach to a strategy of deterrence by denial.

Furthermore, they identify three broad capability areas for further development.  These include (1) the provision of space support, notably through satellite communications to be provided by Australian-owned satellites through project JP9102 in geosynchronous orbit; (2) the establishment of enhanced space domain awareness, with the establishment of a Deep Space Advanced Radar Capability (DARC) at Exmouth in Western Australia—part of a global network of three such sensors—in collaboration with the US and UK; and (3) the development of space control capabilities.

This last aspect of the NDS and IIP opens some intriguing possibilities for future development that could be announced in subsequent policy documents, with the next NDS and IIP due in 2026. It also raises the possibility that space could start to play a larger role as a priority area in AUKUS Pillar 2. Already, the agreement to establish DARC is seen as part of AUKUS and will extend Australia’s ability to undertake space domain awareness out to geosynchronous orbit (GEO) at 36,500 kilometers. That complements the existing C-Band radar and space surveillance telescope already located at Exmouth and will dramatically enhance the ability of Australia to undertake space surveillance under Operation Dyurra. This is an essential requirement for Australia to undertake the space control mission, so it would make sense to bring this role into AUKUS Pillar 2 as well and see the two missions as integrated.

Just how Australia will undertake space control needs further clarification. There is only the following paragraph in the IIP, which states that space control will include “measures to enhance Defence’s space control capability to deny attempts to interfere with, or attack, Australia’s use of the space domain. These will help ensure the ADF is able to continue using the space capabilities it needs to support its operations.”

Australia has signed the ban on undertaking destructive testing of direct-ascent anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons as part of steps to promote responsible action in space, and it is extremely unlikely that Australia would pursue destructive “kinetic kill”’ ASATs, either direct-ascent or co-orbital in design. Exactly what Australia could pursue in terms of space control is open to speculation at this stage. Defence has undertaken work toward a space-electronic warfare capability under Defence Project DEF 9358, and this would be consistent with the 2024 IIP’s stated approach to space control, as well as the 2020 Force Structure Plan.

A “soft kill” capability, which is either ground-based or co-orbital, that could deliver scalable and reversible effects without creating space debris would contribute directly to the need for space control in a manner that is also consistent with Australian approaches to responsible actions in space. In the same way, other non-kinetic approaches—directed-energy or cyber—might open up opportunities for Australia to develop space control in the future.

The 2022 Defence Space Strategy, released by Defence Space Command, makes clear the importance of assured access to space. This can be achieved in part through resilience of space support, including through defending satellites on-orbit via space control. But it also can be strengthened through enhancing sovereign launch capability. It is in this area where the 2024 NDS and IIP misses a valuable opportunity to integrate the space needs of defense with the growing commercial space sector.

There is no mention whatsoever of Australia’s vibrant commercial space sector in the 2024 NDS and IIP. It is almost as if the view from Defence is that this growing sector does not exist. Yet, Australia’s space sector is fast emerging as the basis for an end-to-end ecosystem, comprising not only the ground segment, but also satellite design and manufacturing through to sovereign launch capabilities.

Indeed, Australia is truly blessed in geographic terms for sovereign launch, with launch sites in the north located close to the equator to take full advantage of Earth’s rotational energy for cheaper cost per kilogram into equatorial low-earth orbit, and launch sites along the south of the continent that are well placed to access polar and sun synchronous orbits. Australia’s launch geography is a key factor prompting the signing of a Technology Safeguards Agreement with the United States on launches and returns.

Defence missed this opportunity to strengthen space resilience through supporting sovereign launch of small satellites that could complement large satellites in GEO, such as those envisaged for JP9102 with proliferated LEO (pLEO) constellations of small satellites for satellite communications and earth observation, to support both civil and defense needs. It missed the clear benefits of sovereign launch to reinforce assured access to space, through rapid augmentation of existing space capabilities in a crisis—or reconstitution of those capabilities in the event of an adversary employing counterspace capabilities against Australian satellites. It missed the opportunity for Australia to take a new step forward to do more to burden share in orbit with allies and strengthen the resilience of space support in the face of counterspace threats from China and Russia.

As the NDS and IIP are biennial documents, the opportunity is still there for Defence to embrace a bolder vision for Australia in space in the next release in 2026, whilst government more fully supports the growth of the commercial space sector. The question is whether Defence and the government will have the vision and determination to do something new. They have begun to think in these terms, given their support for developing space control capabilities, but they can do so much more.

Malcolm Davis, PhD, is a Senior Analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.  

Where Next for Australia’s Defence Force in Space? was originally published on Global Security Review.

Rather than an aggressive push in space strategy, policy, and guidance for the DoD’s emergent roles and missions in such things as cislunar operations, in-space manufacturing, low earth orbit operations (LEO), space weather, science, technology, engineering, and math skills, planetary defense, and support for deep space exploration and development; the only substantive document produced by the office was an updated directive for the Department of Defense on space policy. While this usefully collects and repeats a number of high-level policies, it falls short as it fails to codify the most important policies and taskings material for strategic, great power competition, which were released by the two previous administrations.

Reading the updated directive gives the impression that the DoD is not subject to any of the space-specific national strategies and appears to indicate that the National Strategy for Space, as developed in 2018, is defunct. The DoD’s space policy completely ignores the nation’s legal and policy direction to economically develop space and continue to lead the free world in this vital domain.

Worse, the absence of forward-leaning enabling policy leads to hesitation on the part of key players in government and industry that increase uncertainty and reduce synergies within the interagency, and their allies and partners.

Some apologists for the lack of thought leadership from ASD Space Policy argue that the office is held hostage by an administration whose National Space Council is overly focused on a norms-based approach and is overly passive about developing the key material capabilities needed to address America’s ever-diminishing advantage in strategic competition in the space domain. While the Biden administration kept the Artemis program, and released a cislunar science and technology strategy, they were overly tolerant of NASA’s delays, budget overruns, and failure to meet the intent of SPD-1—to facilitate a permanent and industrial base on the moon. While the administration kept the Space Force, it allowed both ASD Space Policy and the Space Force to operate for nearly four years without a future operating concept or strategy for strategic competition in the space domain.

To address this flagging advantage in space, and the lackluster focus of ASD Space Policy and the administration, Congress must play a stronger role to ensure that the strategy, guidance and resources are committed to ensure American leadership in space through the following actions:

First, Congress needs to ensure the ASD Space Policy is not distracted from their intended duties. When Congress elevated the position, in concert with the establishment of the Space Force, Congress envisioned a dedicated shop which would enable concentrated and singularly space focused, civilian oversight and rapid yes/no decisions in support of the Space Force and overarching national security space requirements. This would enable more agile evolution and employment of the force—in some ways analogous to ASD for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict (ASD-SOLIC).

Rather, the administration convoluted the new office with other strategic capabilities for integrated deterrence, including cyber, missile defense, nuclear weapons, and countering weapons of mass destruction. This should be reversed and should provide the dedicated strategy/policy focus space requires for the US to compete and win against adversaries in space.

Second, task ASD Space Policy, in partnership with OSD Net Assessment to provide Congress with a bigger-picture net assessment and strategy for great-power competition in space. In the 2021 NDAA Section 1614, Congress asked the National Space Council to do a comprehensive net assessment and to produce a comprehensive strategy to compete with China. The National Space Council proved uninterested in the task.

Congress should re-assign this primarily security-focused study to ASD Space Policy as lead. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB), who historically pushed for the creation of both the ASD Space Policy and the Space Force, should ensure that their fiscal needs reach Congress in a timely manner, and not compromise the long-term effectiveness of ASD Space Policy by exacerbating perceptions of the office’s tardiness and non-responsiveness.

Third, Congress should direct ASD Space Policy to update the Defense Space strategy. It was argued at the time of release that the 2020 Defense Space Strategy was already out of date. Since 2020 a diversity of higher-level policies has established major components of a broader national grand strategy in space. New joint doctrine better articulates the DoD’s role in strategic competition; the Defense Space Strategy has not aged well. Congress should therefore ask for a new Defense Space Strategy that acknowledges the nation’s grand strategy in the domain. In particular, the nation’s civil and commercial ambitions in cislunar space must be included, with provisions for enabling policy to US Space Command (USSPACECOM) and the Space Force—to support and protect those equities.

Fourth, accompanying this broad defense space strategy should be a specific DoD cislunar strategy. Just as the DoD has an Arctic strategy, which articulates the manifold ways in which the department supports primarily civil and commercial actors in the Arctic, A whole-of-nation strategy is needed for space. ASD Space Policy should be directed to author a DoD cislunar strategy which articulates how DoD postures, invests, and operates to support broader national goals.

Finally, Congress should also ask ASD Space Policy to update the DoD directive on space policy and the DoD directive on functions of the Department of Defense, with the specified tasks in Title 10, the Unified Command Plan, National Space Policy, national cislunar strategy, In-Space Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing National Strategy, LEO strategy, and planetary defense strategy. These White House documents detail US Space Command, US Air Force, and US Space Force responsibilities to protect and defend commerce, develop technologies of strategic interest, and develop capabilities for homeland defense against asteroids and comets. Just as NASA provides implementing guidance for the national planetary defense strategy, ASD Space Policy should provide implementing guidance for each of those mentioned above.

In short, Congress must ensure that ASD Space Policy is not a stumbling block to America’s grand strategic ambitions in space. Toward that end, Congress should give that office some much needed homework.

Peter Garretson is Senior Fellow in Defense Studies at the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, DC. Views expressed in this article are the author’s own. 

Congress Must Demand Stronger Leadership from OSD Space Policy was originally published on Global Security Review.