Russia is 'persistently' targeting British satellites, warns space chief
'They've got payloads on board that can see our satellites and are trying to collect information from them.'
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Hello, and welcome to this week’s edition of The View from Space.
🛰️ Russia is ‘persistently’ targeting British satellites, says the head of UK Space Command. Speaking to the BBC, Major General Paul Tedman said that Russian forces have been attempting to disrupt British spacecraft on a ‘weekly’ basis:
‘“They’re interested in what we’re doing and flying relatively close,” he said.
“They’ve got payloads on board that can see our satellites and are trying to collect information from them.”
Gen Tedman said UK military satellites had been fitted with counter-jamming technologies but added: “We’re seeing our satellites being jammed by the Russians on a reasonably persistent basis.”
When asked how often, he replied “weekly”. It was, he said, deliberate and the activity had increased since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Britain has half a dozen dedicated military satellites in orbit providing communications and surveillance.
In contrast, the US, China and Russia each have more than a hundred. The combined Russian and Chinese fleet of satellites has increased by 70% over the past decade.
Gen Tedman said Russia and China had both tested anti-satellite weapons. Both the UK and the US have warned that Russia has been developing the capability to put nuclear weapons in space.
While the US sees China as the pacing threat, Gen Tedman sees Russia as the more immediate danger: “I would say the Chinese have by far the more sophisticated capability but the Russians have more will to use their counter-space systems.”
Gen Tedman said he was “really worried” about what was happening in space.’
🖥️ In SpaceNews, Sandra Erwin argues that the real space war is being fought in cyberspace, citing U.S. National Reconnaissance Office Christopher Scolese at the recent Intelligence and National Security Summit:
‘Satellites orbiting Earth, the radio frequency signals that connect them and the ground systems that control and process their data all represent points of vulnerability. A well-placed digital intrusion could cascade through an entire satellite network.
The NRO itself saw a breach this summer when hackers compromised its Acquisition Research Center website, which contractors use to submit bids. That incident targeted intellectual property and personal information, not satellites directly, but it showed cyber adversaries are probing every corner of the ecosystem, including the industrial base.
Scolese admitted the unpredictability of the threat. “It’s one of those things that tomorrow, there’s going to be a different threat, and we have to adapt very quickly.”
The challenges are magnified by the rapid commercialization of space. Public-private integration has expanded capability but also the attack surface. Securing it requires standardized protocols, active intelligence sharing and a recognition that the government cannot wall itself off from the vulnerabilities of its partners.’
❗️ Revolut backer Balderton Capital has warned that Europe ‘cannot rely on Elon Musk’s SpaceX’, reports the FT. Bernard Liautaud said it represented a ‘huge risk’:
‘European investment in defence tech start-ups has rocketed this year, as Nato countries have hiked defence spending in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
That has driven the creation of dozens of new start-ups developing drones, battlefield software and other military technologies.
However, Liautaud said that Europe needs to build much stronger capabilities to launch satellites and build space-based defences, a sector in which Elon Musk’s SpaceX has become the “dominant force”.’
💷 Air Marshal Andrew Turner CB CBE, CEO of Saibre Capital and Industry Advisory Board member at NewSpace Capital, argues for Defense Opinion that public spending alone will not drive the defence innovation that Britain badly needs:
‘Government, anxious about risk, vacillates on long-term purchase commitments, which are the very catalyst for business success. Overall, investors want low-risk, quick and high return positions, which is not how the security sector operates. If the UK government is to meet and match the threat, a different financial model is desperately needed. And fast.
Global military spending climbed 9.4 percent above inflation last year to $2.72 trillion. This is a substantial market in any comparison, but one where private capital is largely absent yet could gain enormously.
The opportunities are numerous and diverse, few are “high-risk” and all should be viewed as strategic infrastructure investments. For instance, the demand for ammunition has far outstripped the dormant supply chains, which now need long-term patient capital to restart factories; as an investment category, this is just like building battery factories.
Success in war is profoundly dependent upon information, but defense investment into data centers is almost absent; private capital injection and returns would be no different to that from main street retail. Simultaneously thinking fast and slow is at the heart of winning in combat and quantum processing is key, but investment is absent; building a million-qubit computer is a capital investment in growing our national capacity.’
✂️ Fifty NASA projects are facing ‘extinction’, warns The Times, adding that China is poised to overtake the U.S. in the space race. Bill Nye called it ‘a key turning point in the history of space exploration and a key turning point in the history of the United States’:
‘A coalition of science organisations went to Capitol Hill on Monday to speak out against White House plans to slash Nasa’s budget by 24 per cent, which would nearly halve yearly investment in science programmes to $3.9 billion and sever one third of its 16,000 workers.
“Fully functioning spacecraft summarily turned off, development work on virtually every future scientific mission summarily halted. We’re not talking about delays in scientific exploration, we’re talking about the end of it,” said Bill Nye, chief executive of The Planetary Society.
“While we’re checking out, our competitors are checking in,” he added, warning that China could put taikonauts on the Moon before western astronauts return, and be the first to bring rock samples to Earth potentially showing evidence that ancient life existed on the planet.
“There will be new Sputnik moments,” Nye warned, summoning up the spectre of the Cold War space race of the 1950s and 1960s, in which the Soviet Union beat America to get the first human-made satellite — and then the first human — into space.’
🚀 A ‘mystery tourist’ will be launched into space on Blue Origin’s latest flight today. The Independent reports that joining the five tourists, who paid up to $300,000 for the 10-minute trip, is ‘an undisclosed sixth crew member who asked to remain anonymous until after the flight’:
‘The five named participants are franchise executive Jeff Elgin, electrical engineer Clint Kelly, entrepreneur Danna Karagussova, startup founder Aaron Newman and real estate investor Vitalii Ostovsky.
The launch of the latest Blue Origin flight, called NS-36, will be live streamed on the company’s website.
Ticket prices for the 10-minute jaunt are estimated to be between $200,000 to $300,000, however one seat on the first flight was auctioned for $28 million.
Space tourism flights conducted by Blue Origin and other private firms like SpaceX have faced significant criticism for their environmental impact.’
🤯 And finally, ESA takes us on a guided tour of the highland region of Xanthe Terra on Mars in its latest video: