“As the cost of entry declines over time, if offense remains dominant, then the application of asymmetric space warfare by nonstate actors will become an even greater threat to all states with interests in space.”
– Dr. Gregory Miller, Professor of Leadership Studies, USAF ACSC

Diverse, Disruptive, Disordered, and Dangerous

Access to space is no longer the sole privilege of national governments. The explosive growth of the commercial space industry has lowered the barriers to entry of every element of the space endeavour, from building and operating satellites to accessing launch services. Over 50 nations have at least one object in orbit.

In 1990, 70% of satellites were operated by the military; that number is now closer to 13% (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2022). The number of non-state actors operating in space will grow exponentially in the coming years. Some of these actors will be hostile.

The Second Space Age is differentiated as “more diverse, disruptive, disordered, and dangerous,” as access to space opens faster than regulation can police it (Harrison, et al., 2017). The cost of delivering a payload to orbit has fallen precipitously, from $10,400/kg in 2002 to $1,500/kg in 2022 (Center for Strategic & International Studies, 2022). The number of satellites has, in turn, increased exponentially.

There were around 3,000 satellites sharing Low-Earth Orbit in 2002; that number is now closer to 8,000 (United States Space Force, 2022). The rate of injection is also increasing, surpassing 1,000 new satellites per year in 2020 and 1,800 in 2021 (Our World In Data, 2021). More satellites were built and launched in 2022 by SpaceX alone than by every spacefaring nation from Sputnik 1 until 1980. These numbers are certainly an underestimate; not all objects in orbit are tracked.

Access to space is rapidly becoming available to all. Small-satellite startups like EnduroSat allow customers to design a bespoke satellite as though they were buying a car, for a base cost of $40,000 USD – cheaper than a new Toyota Hilux (EnduroSat, 2022). These satellites come in universal sizes which attach to rideshare plates operated by open launch providers, who then deliver the payload to orbit.

SpaceX’s Transporter rideshare program, for example, will inject customer satellites into virtually any chosen Earth orbit for as little as $275,000 USD (SpaceX, 2022). Rideshare customers range from NASA to corporations, universities, and hobbyist groups (University of Colorado Boulder, 2022). The bottom line is that, for a little over $300,000 USD, anyone can put a functioning satellite into orbit.

Space Pirates

Malicious space actors can be categorised as guerrillas and terrorists pursuing a political, religious, or social agenda; or pirates, who are economically motivated (Miller, 2019). Groups are distinguished by intent, and thus choice of target:

• Guerrillas usually have a national focus and intend to overthrow an existing power structure. Seeking to be viewed as legitimate by the local population and international community, their targets will generally be military.
• Terrorists are ideologically motivated and seek to promote their cause through violence. Terrorists attack government, military, civilian, and symbolic targets.
• Pirates seek profit and can include both criminal organisations and commercial actors engaging in corporate sabotage (Viets, 2018). Seeking to avoid military retaliation, their targets will primarily be confined to commercial ones.

Malicious space activities include hijacking, jamming, data theft, and spoofing, up to outright physical disabling or destruction of a satellite. These activities are differentiated by environmental and collateral damage, reversibility, and attributability. Different groups will favour different methods, with terrorists the most likely to seek kinetic damage to satellites, being the least concerned about collateral or environmental impacts and seeking to maximize public attention.

Non-state, non-kinetic action against satellites has already occurred, but to date no guerrilla, terrorist, or pirate has either launched a satellite, or physically attacked another (Miller, 2019). As access to space opens, the risk that these could happen must be respected. Anti-satellite weapons (ASAT) capability could be leveraged by pirates to demand ransoms from threatened commercial operators or conduct corporate sabotage, by guerrillas to degrade the functioning of military satellites in support of ground operations, or by terrorists to harm commercial space operations or even manned spacecraft. Kinetic destruction of satellites is the focus of this series, and as terrorists are the most likely to employ destructive methods, this article will now investigate ways a terrorist group could acquire an anti-satellite weapon.

ASAT For Sale

Missile proliferation could provide non-state actors with an anti-satellite weapon. Iran’s Ghadr-110 medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) projects a 750kg payload to an altitude of 400km (Center for Strategic & International Studies, 2021). It’s unlikely Iran possesses guidance systems capable of striking satellites, yet a ‘close enough’ detonation of a 750kg fragmentation warhead would still endanger spacecraft.

Iran actively proliferates its ballistic missiles to non-state actors, including ideologically aligned extremist groups (International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2021). North Korea likewise boasts a massive domestic missile industry and is an active proliferator of ballistic missile systems. Iran’s Shahab-2, the precursor to the Ghadr, was derived from the North Korean Hwasong-6, sold to Iran in the early 1990s (Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, 2022). If an extremist organisation sought to acquire an anti-satellite-capable missile, it would both likely be possible, and likely to come from Iran or North Korea.

Ballistic missiles could also provide a platform to bootstrap a domestic space launch capability. To get to orbit, a rocket must both be able to reach the correct altitude and generate sufficient speed – about 8km/s – to prevent it from falling back to Earth (Wright, et al., 2005). Many ballistic missiles can achieve orbital altitude, but most cannot generate the delta-V (or velocity) to inject an object into a stable orbit. Making the required modifications; however, is a technically difficult but well-understood process. The original space launch vehicles developed by both the United States and the Soviet Union were modified ballistic missiles. The Safir-2 rocket, Iran’s domestic space launch vehicle, is derived from the Ghadr MRBM, and North Korea’s Unha-3 from the Hwasong-7 (Schiller, 2012). Both Iran and North Korea’s rockets have demonstrated successful launches to LEO. A multi-stage ballistic missile could be converted into a space launch vehicle. They may also form part of an alternative launch platform.

The Second Space Age has resulted in a Cambrian explosion of alternative space launch techniques. Several commercial providers are pursuing air-launched space vehicles; Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne carries small satellites to orbit from beneath a Boeing 747 (Virgin Orbit, 2022). Deployed from a carrier aircraft in a fashion analogous to an air-launched ballistic missile, these vehicles use the speed and altitude of the carrier to substitute for a first stage.

This allows much smaller rockets to deliver payloads to orbit. Air-launched vehicles also need no fixed launch site, increasing security, and could deliver a co-orbital or K-ASAT weapon beneath to the orbital plane of a target satellite, minimising time to target. It can move to take advantage of orbital mechanics; launching east from equatorial regions increases delta-V by around 20%, reducing the thrust a vehicle’s engines must produce to achieve orbit (Wright, et al., 2005).

Such a system is currently unfeasible for terrorist groups, not least for the difficulty of maintaining heavy-lift aircraft, but could be realised as Autonomous Launch Vehicle (AuLV) technology matures. The largest operational UAS, Aevum’s Ravn X, is currently selling launch services to the U.S Space Force (Aevum, 2022). A copied and proliferated AuLV could bring air-launch capability to non-state actors.

How to Build a Satellite-Killer

A hostile co-orbital satellite could be as simple as a mine-laying or kamikaze CubeSat, designed to endanger an orbital path through deliberate debris creation, all the way up to a guided autonomous weapon capable of targeting specific satellites (Canavan, 1993). The Second Space Age has generated a steady flow of space engineers entering the global workforce; democratising and globalising the knowledge required to build and operate a satellite (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2016).

Access to aerospace technology is also proliferating. The Iranian Shahed-136, Israeli Harops, and Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drones, all both combat-proven and for sale, feature guidance packages capable of autonomous targeting (Israel Aerospace Industries, 2022). These weapons are already globally proliferated (Witt, 2022). Technology which until recently belonged exclusively to advanced militaries now provides a ‘just-add-water’ precision-guided weapon capability to any sufficiently resourced group.

A package this advanced may not even be required; simple radar systems for entry-level ASAT missiles have been proposed (Canavan, 1993). To modify an off-the-shelf guidance system to instead target satellites, build it into a weaponised CubeSat, then inject it into orbit, either as part of a legitimate rideshare program or atop a modified ballistic missile, is unlikely to remain theoretical for long.

A Clear and Present Danger

It’s critically important to note that, while the idea of a hostile non-state actor directly threatening spacecraft is currently theoretical, the scenarios mentioned above are either achievable with technology currently available to sufficiently resourced groups, or just need a little technical extrapolation. Extremist groups aggressively pursue methods of imparting asymmetric effects on greater powers; as students of manoeuvre warfare, the reader can appreciate this approach. Given the advantages a modern military derives from space systems, acquiring offset methods presents an attractive goal to a non-state adversary.

Non-state actors could represent a greater threat to human space activity than states. They generally fear reprisal less, are less concerned about unintended escalation, and have no space assets of their own to lose (Miller, 2019). Attacks would be less technically sophisticated, favouring area effects to compensate for lack of precision and bearing unpredictable consequences.

The inevitable media coverage and public attention would project a terrorist organisation’s cause to a global audience. Attribution for an attack may be difficult to place or could be misdirected. While the risk of killing astronauts might deter a state from attacking orbital targets, terrorist groups may seek fatalities to magnify the impact of their action. Then there are the truly long-tail consequences.

Cascading debris generation in orbit could render space permanently inaccessible. The denial of space exploration, to not only present humanity but generations of our descendants, would represent an unparalleled moral catastrophe. This sense of profound loss is unlikely to be shared by groups motivated by religious or cultural extremism. It may, again, even present an attractive goal.

Arms Control

ASAT proliferation will be difficult to police. Arms control agreements have been proposed to stymie their development (Blatt, 2020). Defining ASATs; however, is made difficult by dual-use issues; ballistic missiles that are also capable of achieving orbit, UAS guidance systems that could be re-engineered, commercial launch providers that could be exploited, and co-orbital weapons that masquerade as legitimate satellites performing peacetime functions. Any assurance through arms control would be tenuous. As military and commercial use of space grows, other measures must be explored to protect spacecraft from state and non-state threats.

Conclusion

Part Two of How to Prevent a War in Space has explored the motivations for different non-state groups seeking to threaten objects in space and explored potential methods by which a terrorist group could acquire ASAT capability. Part Three discusses different concepts of deterrence, and present deterrence as a practical method of safeguarding ADF and partner spacecraft.