Dr Maureen Haverty, Vice President of Seraphim Space, discusses how world superpowers are navigating challenges and seizing opportunities in the global space race.
Space has been critical in our daily lives for many years: from its use by governments to gather intelligence to powering our daily commute with GPS. With rapidly changing tech, there are more and more businesses involved in the space race, from Apple’s new satellite-enabled SOS capability to companies using Earth Observation data to power their insurance models.
Yet the increasing importance of space poses several challenges and opportunities for governments in different markets. The US, for example, wants to maintain its competitive edge in the commercial space sector and protect the warfighter.
The UK, meanwhile, grapples with replacing the pivotal infrastructure access it forfeited post-Brexit, hoping that the space sector will boost employment.
Meanwhile, Europe is intently focusing on space sovereignty, believing itself over-reliant on US businesses, particularly SpaceX. The government mandate, across these regions, remains clear: offer what industry can’t – whether that’s high CAPEX endeavours or ventures too nascent for commercial backing.
Their role? To create an environment in which the commercial space sector thrives and meets these challenges head-on.
How the US is pioneering the commercial frontier in the space race
The US is a clear example of what you focus on when you’re on top of the space race. For it, the challenges of launch, communications, and Earth Observation have been met, thanks to the early support it provided the New Space industry, using startups like SpaceX, Rocket Lab, and Planet. As the commercial leader in the space race, the US is keen to maintain the competitive environment its businesses have thrived in.
It needs to focus on collaboration with other governments to prevent them from favouring national champions. A tough ask when the dominance of SpaceX is considered a key challenge by other nations!
To maintain its lead, the US wants to secure its space industrial base, with workers being the most important and difficult part of this. For this reason, STEM education is a core part of US space policy, specifically to foster the next generation of space workers.
The US is perhaps the most successful user of space for its warfighting capability, using GPS for military targeting, space surveillance for intelligence gathering and military operations, and communications in the field. No wonder it prioritises space security, i.e. protecting satellites in space and the ground networks that communicate with them. The entire industry faces increased threats both from physical weapons and cybersecurity. To deter bad actors that would attack satellites, the US wants to name and shame, and to do this effectively it needs better space situational awareness.
Challenges remain as cybersecurity is a known threat but does not seem to be getting the attention it needs.
Individual programme managers are tasked with considering cybersecurity in their programmes. But considering the devastation an attack can cause (Russia deliberately took out Viasat’s communication network before its invasion to cripple Ukraine’s military) cybersecurity should be top of mind for US leaders.
Economic and defensive frontiers in the UK
The UK’s challenge is working out how to use the space race to fuel economic growth. As a hardware-focused industry, the government hopes that a growing space sector could provide highly-skilled jobs and fuel its levelling up agenda.
Although both the US and the UK want more space workers, they approach it from different angles. The US wants workers to protect its space sector whereas the UK wants its space sector to increase employment. The US approach has led to concentrated space hubs (LA, Denver, Florida, Seattle) but the UK wants more distributed space clusters (Harwell, Leicester) to increase regional growth. This approach may well work but will likely need a lot of investment and support to achieve its aims.
The UK government wants space to solve the world’s biggest challenges and deliver tangible benefits for UK citizens on climate change and disaster response. It plans to deliver this by improving government procurement of space services, e.g. making it easy for local governments to purchase Earth Observation data. This approach has several benefits. Using space to solve real problems will drive demand for space data, further boosting the UK’s space sector.
However, the UK faces some serious challenges in the space race that it needs to resolve urgently. On leaving the EU, the UK lost access to large amounts of critical space infrastructure like Galileo, the position, navigation, and timing (PNT) system. There has not been enough progress on replacing this access, which drew criticism from a parliamentary committee in March.
European Union: The pursuit of sovereignty
In many ways, the EU’s biggest space challenge in the space race is one of belief systems. The EU believes it is too reliant on the US, particularly US businesses like SpaceX – it wants space sovereignty.
There is a serious question here about whether this belief is even true. Not everyone agrees that the EU needs its own rocket launcher (although it has historically had one through Arianespace) or a home-grown communications constellation. Yet, having focused on these challenges, its response has been swift.
Government declarations on space sovereignty have encouraged private investment in Isar Aerospace, Rocket Factory Augsburg, and Exotrail. ESA, which has many EU member states, announced the Commercial Cargo Transportation Initiative this year, its answer to NASA’s 2016 Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS). Commercial companies are now bidding to deliver cargo to the International Space Station and its successors.
The hope here is that government support with these contracts will develop a strong European launcher system, much like COTS-supported SpaceX. Finally, the EU does not want to be reliant on SpaceX’s Starlink or Oneweb for connectivity and plans to launch an EU communications constellation IRIS2 in the global space race.
Fundamental challenges still remain and require more effort by the EU. The real cause of European reliance on US businesses, is simply that the US businesses are doing a great job in the space race. Space startups in the US have been wildly successful at invigorating the space sector in the US and globally. To generate a company on which other nations rely, the EU needs to work harder to make sure space startups can flourish in the EU. It needs to foster a dynamic space startup ecosystem for innovation and self-reliance.
It is clear why these governments care about space: it impacts our daily lives, our economies, and our security. Each government has its own challenges, driven by its national interests and the current state of its space sector. Ultimately they all have the same goals: to maximise the benefits of space for their own country and globally and protect it for future generations.
