Europe is ramping up satellite security
Space systems are being increasingly targeted by cyberattacks.
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Happy New Year, and welcome to this years’s first edition of The View from Space.
🛰️ POLITICO reports that Europe is ‘moving to harden the security of its satellites’, with rising geopolitical tensions and a growing range of hybrid threats pushing space communications to the heart of the bloc’s security plans:
‘For years, satellite infrastructure was treated by policymakers as a technical utility rather than a strategic asset. That changed in 2022, when a cyberattack on the Viasat satellite network coincided with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Satellites have since become popular targets for interference, espionage and disruption. The European Commission in June warned that space was becoming “more contested,” flagging increasing cyberattacks and attempts at electronic interference targeting satellites and ground stations. Germany and the United Kingdom warned earlier this year of the growing threat posed by Russian and Chinese space satellites, which are regularly spotted spying on their satellites.
EU governments are now racing to boost their resilience and reduce reliance on foreign technology, both through regulations like the new Space Act and investments in critical infrastructure.
The threat is crystal clear in Greenland, Laurynas Mačiulis, the chief executive officer of Astrolight, said. “The problem today is that around 80 percent of all the [space data] traffic is downlinked to a single location in Svalbard, which is an island shared between different countries, including Russia,” he said in an interview.’
🚀 The British company Space Forge have sent a microwave-sized factory into orbit, and have demonstrated that its furnace can be switched on and reach temperatures of around 1,000C. The BBC reports:
‘They plan to manufacture material for semiconductors, which can be used back on Earth in electronics in communications infrastructure, computing and transport.
Conditions in space are ideal for making semiconductors, which have the atoms they’re made of arranged in a highly ordered 3D structure.
When they are being manufactured in a weightless environment, those atoms line up absolutely perfectly. The vacuum of space also means that contaminants can’t sneak in.
The purer and more ordered a semiconductor is, the better it works.’
💥 SpaceNews reports that a Spanish military communications satellite has been struck by a ‘space particle’, putting the mission at risk.
‘Indra Group, the majority owner of satellite operator Hisdesat, announced Jan. 2 that the SpainSat NG 2 satellite “suffered the impact of a space particle” while maneuvering to its final position in geostationary orbit.
The company provided few details, including the exact timing of the incident. It said the impact occurred when the spacecraft was at an altitude of about 50,000 kilometers.
The Airbus-built SpainSat NG 2 launched Oct. 23 on a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The 6,100-kilogram satellite was placed into a supersynchronous transfer orbit with an apogee of more than 60,000 kilometers on a rare Falcon 9 mission that expended the booster to achieve higher performance.
The altitude of the incident, well above the geostationary belt, suggests a collision with orbital debris is unlikely. The spacecraft may instead have been struck by a micrometeoroid. Another possibility is that the reference to a “space particle” reflects an interaction with charged particles associated with space weather; NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center reported minor to moderate activity in recent days.’
❌ The Times reports that China and Russia have accused Starlink of endangering spacecraft and helping criminals, drug smugglers and terror groups:
‘The two countries, supported by allies including Cuba and Iran, have gone to the United Nations to demand the US rein in Starlink, saying its expansion is breaching international obligations in space.
Russia is furious at the way Starlink has been made available to Ukraine, enabling internet access on the front line for Ukrainian forces fighting the Russian invasion.
China is already gaming how Starlink might be blocked in the case of war over Taiwan, and is increasingly challenging American domination of space in military terms.
“The unchecked proliferation of commercial satellite constellations by a certain country, in the absence of effective regulation, has given rise to pronounced safety and security challenges,” Fu Cong, China’s United Nations representative, told a special UN meeting called by Russia to discuss their complaints.’
🛸 The interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS is not an alien spacecraft, astronomers have confirmed, saying that ‘In the end, there were no surprises’. Space.com reports:
‘Space fans hoping that the intruder from beyond the solar system known as Comet 3I/ATLAS is actually an alien spacecraft may be disappointed by new research that could close the book on this speculation once and for all.
Astronomers used the Green Bank Telescope, employed in the Breakthrough Listen extraterrestrial signal-hunting astronomy project, to search 3I/ATLAS for measurable signs of technology from extraterrestrial civilizations, or “technosignatures.”
“We all would have been thrilled to find technosignatures coming from 3I/ATLAS, but they’re just not there,” lead researcher Benjamin Jacobson-Bell from the University of California, Berkeley, told Space.com. “Finding no signals was the result we expected, due to the significant evidence for 3I/ATLAS being a comet with only natural features.
“The evidence was against 3I/ATLAS being one such probe, but we would have been remiss not to check.”’
🫸 SpaceX faces ‘pushback’ over its plans to launch 15,000 cellular Starlink satellites, PCMag reports:
‘SpaceX’s plan to launch an additional 15,000 satellites for its Starlink cellular system has sparked opposition and concern from rival companies and environmentalists, who are weighing in after the FCC opened a public comment period on the proposed constellation.
Currently, SpaceX has FCC clearance to orbit about 12,000 satellites. Its cellular Starlink service uses approximately 650 satellites, but it faces bandwidth constraints. The new constellation promises to upgrade the service, enabling it to beam 5G connectivity to phones worldwide for improved video calls and high-speed downloads.
In total, however, SpaceX wants about 49,000 satellites in Earth’s orbit, if you consider all of its satellite plans for Starlink, according to rival satellite provider Viasat.
“This proposed expansion of SpaceX’s operating authority would give [SpaceX] an even greater ability and incentive to foreclose other operators from accessing and using limited orbital and spectrum resources on a competitive basis,” Viasat wrote in a letter to the FCC.’
💦 And researchers have created what they say is the first realisation of a 3D shape with negative space formed entirely by liquid water in space:
Hackers hijacking satellites. As if incoming solar storms and innumerable pieces of random space junk weren't enough to worry about!