Skip to main content

You are here

Alexandra
Stickings

Research Fellow, Space Policy and Security

Alexandra Stickings is Research Fellow for Space Policy and Security within the Military Sciences team at RUSI.

Her research interests include military space, space warfare, counterspace capabilities and international space programmes. She has published on space topics for RUSI Newsbrief, RUSI Defence Systems and RUSI Commentary, and regularly contributes to the media, including the BBC, Channel 4, ITV and Deutsche Welle.

Alexandra holds an MSc in International Security and Global Governance from Birkbeck College, University of London, a BA(Hons) in International Studies from the Open University, and a BSc(Hons) in Physics with Astronomy from the University of Nottingham.

Prior to joining RUSI she worked in a variety of fields including central and local government, as well as the private sector.

Contact Details

RUSI Whitehall

Military Sciences

By This Author

"“There are millions of pieces of debris alongside the thousands of satellites up there, that we have trouble tracking … That is going to get more and more difficult when you have thousands of new satellites and a number of new operators involved.” "

Space Force: The long and bumpy road to getting Trump’s pet project off the ground

21 July 2019

Tags: Aerospace, US Defence Policy, Defence Policy, Global Security Issues

"“There will be an increased demand globally for small satellite launches as space becomes more democratised,” says Alexandra Stickings, a space policy research fellow with the London-based Royal United Services Institute. "

Some of the world’s smallest nations have joined the space race

18 July 2019

Tags: Technology

Apollo Plus Fifty: Lunar Ambitions and the New ‘Space Race’

3 May 2019

50 years on from the first lunar landing, the Moon is once again taking centre stage in international space ambitions. Yet, within a more...

Tags: Aerospace, RUSI Newsbrief, Military Sciences

"“From the Cold War and onwards we’ve seen the US, Russia and China exploring anti-satellite missiles,” says Alexandra Stickings, who works on space policy and security at Britain’s Royal United Services Institute. “We’ve also seen a move towards non-kinetic threats to satellites. These are things like lasers that can be used to dazzle optical sensors; micro-frequencies that can be used to interfere with electronics and disable or disrupt satellites without necessarily destroying them. “The problem is that it’s very difficult to define what a weapon in space is – and this is why the current treaties don’t cover any of this.”"

Space arms treaty should consider threat posed by debris, says EU

22 March 2019

Tags: Aerospace, Military Sciences

Is Space the New Cyber? UK Dependencies and Vulnerabilities

13 March 2019

On 16 January 2019, RUSI convened a conference to discuss the ways in which the UK government is dependent upon space and the threats and...

Tags: Aerospace, Conference Reports, Military Sciences, UK

"[13:15] “What we are seeing now is a much more democratised space environment, more and more actors being able to be involved and yes there are certain states that have more capabilities and are trying to be space powers, but it’s a much different environment [compared to the Cold War]”"

World at One 03/01/2019

3 January 2019

Tags: Aerospace, China, Military Sciences, Pacific

Pages

"“There are millions of pieces of debris alongside the thousands of satellites up there, that we have trouble tracking … That is going to get more and more difficult when you have thousands of new satellites and a number of new operators involved.” "

Space Force: The long and bumpy road to getting Trump’s pet project off the ground

21 July 2019 Tags: Aerospace, US Defence Policy, Defence Policy, Global Security Issues

"“There will be an increased demand globally for small satellite launches as space becomes more democratised,” says Alexandra Stickings, a space policy research fellow with the London-based Royal United Services Institute. "

Some of the world’s smallest nations have joined the space race

18 July 2019 Tags: Technology

"“From the Cold War and onwards we’ve seen the US, Russia and China exploring anti-satellite missiles,” says Alexandra Stickings, who works on space policy and security at Britain’s Royal United Services Institute. “We’ve also seen a move towards non-kinetic threats to satellites. These are things like lasers that can be used to dazzle optical sensors; micro-frequencies that can be used to interfere with electronics and disable or disrupt satellites without necessarily destroying them. “The problem is that it’s very difficult to define what a weapon in space is – and this is why the current treaties don’t cover any of this.”"

Space arms treaty should consider threat posed by debris, says EU

22 March 2019 Tags: Aerospace, Military Sciences

"[13:15] “What we are seeing now is a much more democratised space environment, more and more actors being able to be involved and yes there are certain states that have more capabilities and are trying to be space powers, but it’s a much different environment [compared to the Cold War]”"

World at One 03/01/2019

3 January 2019 Tags: Aerospace, China, Military Sciences, Pacific

""When we think about space in terms of military applications, it is also about dominating the flow of information and ensuring that it gets to them while looking at ways to disrupt that information flow to their adversaries.""

‘Dark side’ of moon seen from surface for first time

3 January 2019 Tags: Aerospace, China, Military Sciences, Technology

"We do have capability in this country, there is absolutely no doubt. UK business has been involved in a lot of the most important parts of the Galileo system, this includes the payload, the atomic clocks that give us these precise signals and a lot of the encryption. The difficulty in saying we can build our own is taking on all of the responsibility and all of the costs ourselves. The current estimate is 3-5 billion. But if you look at the history of GPS and Galileo both far gone past initial estimates in cost and time [18:33 - 23:00]."

Today Programme 01/12/18

1 December 2018 Tags: Aerospace, Military Sciences, UK, Technology, Europe

Pages