Just Released: Space Technology Report

In this new Technology Report, Tereza Pultarova examines the role satellites and other space-based systems play in determining the outcome of 21st-century conflicts.

Surveying the state of the space art in 2024, Part 1 looks at the indispensable battlefield communications and ISR functions delivered from orbit, the range of threats satellites now face and how resilient networks can be created to counter them.

Optical inter-satellite links are one of the hot technologies of today that promise to increase resiliency of space systems against attacks, according to Juliana Suess, space security research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute.

‘Being able to communicate amongst different satellites to potentially circumvent a ground station that's compromised, or satellites, these are the kind of resilience measures that are really changing the game at the moment,’ she told Shephard.

In Part 2, Tereza takes a long view of future capabilities, the prospect and implications of warfare in space, and what technologies nations need to focus on to ensure they maintain access to and control of this crucial domain.

According to Nik Smith, regional director UK and Europe at Lockheed Martin Space, Western nations' progress may not be fast enough to keep up with China’s determination and pace of innovation.

‘I don't think that we have invested in our technology sectors in the same way, which means, when it does come to the next conflict, which could be in five to ten years, we may have great technology at the start, but it'll be depleted and obsolete by the time we get to year two or three,’ he told Shephard.

‘And if we haven't got the industrial base to respond, it becomes less around the technology specifically, and more around your ability to innovate at scale, at pace, to be able to keep up with that.’