Between Ambition and Reality: How Space Fits into the UK Defence Framework

Space is ubiquitous in modern defence: space capabilities are essential in areas such as gathering intelligence, enabling navigation and precision firepower via GPS, and communicating beyond the line of sight. Furthermore, the utility of space increasingly renders capabilities a target for hostile action. Attacks on space-enabled communications services, as seen during the war in Ukraine, are just one example of how counter-space capabilities are already being used. In the future, adversaries may not restrict themselves to non-kinetic means, and space itself might turn into a battlefield.

UK defence views space as both a domain and an enabler, although the balance is skewed towards enablement. It follows that the space domain must be protected to guarantee its utility as an enabler. The mixed message about space given to the services is part of the reason why space is perceived as complicated – it is used by all the armed forces, yet its potential for supporting other domains is not fully understood. A wider understanding of the services and support that space can offer is needed across defence – what it enables, what capabilities are dependent on it, what new vulnerabilities have been exposed as a result, and what investments may be needed to optimise its use. This understanding is important for ensuring that space can continue to be used even when its capabilities are under attack, and so that reversionary non-space-dependent alternatives are developed and trained for, where necessary. UK Space Command will be vital for providing the broader education and wider promotion of space needed across UK defence.

The current approach of treating space as a niche subject area is not only conceptually flawed but also risks leaving space-enabled capabilities vulnerable and space services under-utilised, and reducing the capacity of a growing Space Command to perform its role effectively. This approach has already led to compromises in relation to the Skynet programme that could undermine the security of space assets. In the coming years it will be vital to include UK Space Command in all appropriate discussions to ensure full protection of UK space assets and to allow the command to grow and establish itself.

This paper argues that:

• The Ministry of Defence and Space Command should emphasise doctrinally that space must be understood as both a domain and an enabler, while acknowledging that currently UK defence uses space capabilities more heavily in the enabler role for terrestrial operations than for defensive or offensive operations in space itself.
   
• There should be a greater emphasis across the services on education about space capabilities, the degree to which terrestrial systems and concepts of operation rely on them, and the potential vulnerabilities created that must be mitigated.
   
• This education effort should be part of a wider promotion of the message that space is not reserved for a few specialists in Space Command and in space programmes, but instead is critical for all the services. As such, space must be widely understood, used, built into operational planning as a key capability across domains, and protected.