Days before the publication of last week’s report into Russian activity in the UK, and the subsequent call from several UK parliamentarians for a swift response to the ‘Russian threat’, Russia tested a new anti-satellite weapon capability releasing a small projectile from its Kosmos-2543 sub-satellite.

Kosmos-2543, a small satellite contained inside a larger satellite, Kosmos-2542, and 'birthed’ into orbit in late 2019, recently came under scrutiny in January 2020 when it was reportedly caught ‘buzzing’ US spy satellites in Low Earth Orbit.

By releasing a small projectile from the Kosmos-2543 sub-satellite, the US claims that Russia has launched a new projectile into orbit with relatively high speed – estimated at around 500 km per hour – leading to concerns about the potential of Russia to develop this technology as a weapon to target foreign satellites.

It is not the first time Moscow has relied on a Russian doll – or matryoshka – approach to launching satellites into outer space. In October 2017, a sub-satellite, Kosmos-2521, was ejected from its main satellite, Kosmos-2519, into a high-speed object in low orbit.

The Russian Ministry of Defence has declared that its latest activity is just for ‘routine’ inspections and surveillance of Russia’s other space assets, with the government’s official statement avoiding recognizing the existence of the new object while, at the same time, Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, recalling Russia’s commitment for the ‘complete demilitarization’ of space.

While it is possible that Russia’s matryoshka satellites have indeed been developed to carry out routine repairs of Russia’s space fleet, they also have the potential to interfere with, and destroy, other satellites with such action needing to be considered a threat until Russia demonstrates otherwise.

Russia’s use of outer space

Russia is not the only state investigating anti-satellite weaponry capabilities. There is a wider trend (e.g. China, India, US) to demonstrate advanced space capabilities with nefarious, if not directly offensive, intent. But, for the past few years, Russia in particular, has been provocative in testing its space weapon capabilities. 

For example, in April 2020, Russia launched and tested into low orbit the PL-19 Nudol direct-ascent anti-satellite (DA-ASAT) interceptor missile system from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome demonstrating its space assets with potential offensive capabilities, in particular, Russia’s capacity to destroy satellites in Low Earth Orbit.

In addition, the satellites, Kosmos-2535 and Kosmos-2536, launched in July 2019, are also suspected to be operating beyond their official mission of studying Russian orbital assets. It is reported that these satellites conducted a close proximity activity, coming within one kilometre from each other, which led to the creation of orbital debris.

Russia’s space strategy

By exploiting asymmetric advantages in space, Russia seeks to leverage its capabilities against competitors in space and in other domains, falling in line with its wider military strategy as well as its current Federal Space Programme for 2016 to 2025.

Russian space activities also have a cyber and electronic warfare angle. With the help of remote-sensing capabilities, Russian spy satellites potentially seek to disrupt military and civilian satellite communications and navigation systems. Indeed, in 2018, French authorities publicly accused Russia of seeking to intercept communication satellites for French and Italian armed forces putting data transmission through Western civilian and military satellites at risk of interception.

Furthermore, earlier this year, both Kosmos-2542 and 2543 came within 160 kilometres of a US spy satellite, US KH-11, similarly to Russia ‘buzzing’ around the British Isles or submarine surveillance that Norway and Sweden have been subjected to recently.

Shadowing and tailing in space is regarded as spying and this recent anti-satellite weapon test is part of a trend which demonstrates Russia’s persistent space strategy for close-proximity operations with foreign countries.

Orbital hypocrisy

Despite Russia’s calls for a treaty to prevent the placement of weapons in outer space, there remains little international trust in Russia’s behaviour in space so far with a US-Russia Space Security Exchange meeting scheduled to take place in Vienna on 27 July to discuss outer space stability and security.

This is amid a backdrop of bilateral nuclear arms control talks on the extension of the extant nuclear weapons reduction treaty, New START, which is scheduled to expire in February 2021. There is no guarantee, however, that the talks will achieve anything especially since the future of outer space requires a wider multilateral dialogue with all parties involved – including China.

Anti-satellite tests (ASATs) are a particularly dangerous form of weapon. Not only do they create major vulnerabilities in a domain where so much of humanity depends on for navigation, communications and environmental monitoring, they are also primarily a target for destabilization and undermining global positioning information in times of crisis.

And, perhaps most significantly, they possess the highly destructive potential to create even more space debris in Earth’s orbits that endanger the peaceful use of satellites and could do serious damage to large parts of the economies of developed and developing countries.

Avoiding space warfare

Space is for all but there is a risk that it is being hijacked by a few. It is time to re-assert and reinforce the rules, principles and norms of responsible state behaviour in outer space enshrined in the 1967 Outer Space Treaty and its associated international agreements.

And, because the treaty specifically prohibits stationing nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction in orbit or on celestial bodies, it is necessary to build on it to ban other types of weapons in space.

Space has been militarized since 1957 with the launch of Soviet satellite Sputnik. But the increasing weaponization of space adds more uncertainty, and unveils more vulnerabilities, that states need to address before space warfare becomes a reality.

The 1967 Outer Space Treaty (OST) is the mainframe for space law. It recognizes the importance of the use and scientific exploration of outer space for the benefit and in the interests of all countries. It also prohibits national sovereignty in space, including of the Moon and other celestial bodies.

The OST prohibits all weapons of mass destruction in space – in orbit or on other planets and moons – and does not allow the establishment of military infrastructure, manoeuvres or the testing of any type of weapon on planets or moons. As the treaty makes clear, outer space is for peaceful purposes only. Except of course, it is not – nor has it ever been so.

The very first satellite, Sputnik, was a military satellite which kicked off the Cold War space race between the US and the USSR. The militaries of many countries followed suit, and space is now used for military communication, signals intelligence, imaging, targeting, arms control verification and so on.

However, in keeping with international aspirations, space is also being used for all kinds of peaceful purposes such as environmental monitoring, broadcast communications, delivering the internet, weather prediction, navigation, scientific exploration and – very importantly – monitoring the ‘space weather’ (including the activity from the Sun).

There are several other international agreements on space, such as on the rescue of astronauts, the registration of satellites and liability for damage caused by space objects. There is also the Moon Treaty, which governs activities on the Moon and other moons, asteroids and planets.[i]

More recently, states at the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) in Vienna have agreed on guidelines to deal with the worrying situation of space debris which is cluttering up orbits and posing a danger to satellites, the space station and astronauts.

The problem the international community now faces is that the use of space is changing dramatically and rapidly. There are more satellites than ever – well over 1,000 – and more owners of satellites – almost every country uses information generated from space. Increasingly, however, those owners are not countries, militaries or international organizations but the commercial sector. Very soon, the owners will even include individuals.

Small ‘mini-satellites’ or ‘cube-sats’ are poised to be deployed in space. These can act independently or in ‘swarms’, and are so small that they piggy-back on the launching of other satellites and so are very cheap to launch. This is changing the cost–benefit equation of satellite ownership and use. Developing countries are increasingly dependent on space for communications, the internet and information on, for example, weather systems, coastal activities and agriculture. 

Another major development is the advent of asteroid mining. Asteroids contain a wide range of metals and minerals – some asteroids are more promising than others, and some are closer to Earth than others. Several companies have been set up and registered around the world to begin the exploitation of asteroids for precious metals (such as platinum) and compounds (such as rare-earth minerals).

Legally, however, this will be a murky venture. The current international treaty regime prohibits the ownership of a celestial body by a country – space is for all. But does international law prohibit the ownership or exploitation of a celestial body by a private company? The law has yet to be tested, but there are space lawyers who think that companies are exempt. Luxembourg and Australia are two countries that have already begun the registration of interest for space-mining companies.

As humanity becomes more dependent on information that is generated in or transmitted through space, the vulnerability to the manipulation of space data is increasing. The demands on the use of communications frequencies (the issue of spectrum availability and rights), managed by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU),[ii] need to be urgently addressed.

There are now constant cyberattacks in space and on the digital information on which our systems rely. For example, position, navigation and timing information such as from GPS or Galileo is not only vital for getting us safely from A to B, but also for fast-moving financial transactions that require accurate timing signals.

Almost all of our electronic systems depend on those timing signals for synchronization and basic functioning. Cyber hacks, digital spoofing and ‘fake’ information are now a real possibility. There is no rules-based order in place that is fit to deal with these types of attacks.

Cyberweapons are only part of the problem. It is assumed that states, if they haven’t already done so, will be positioning ‘defensive’ space weaponry to protect their satellites. The protection may be intended to be against space debris – nets, grabber bars and harpoons, for example, are all being investigated.

All of these ideas, however, could be used as offensive weapons. Once one satellite operator decides to equip its assets with such devices, many others will follow. The weaponization of space is in the horizon.

There are no international rules or agreements to manage these developments. Attempts in Geneva to address the arms race in space have floundered alongside the inability of the Conference on Disarmament to negotiate any instrument since 1996.

Attempts to develop rules of the road and codes of conduct, or even to begin negotiations to prohibit weapons in space, have failed again and again. There are no agreed rules to govern cyber activity. The Tallinn Manuals[iii] that address how international law is applicable to cyberwarfare also address the laws of armed conflict in space, but data spoofing and cyber hacking in space exist in far murkier legal frameworks.

The current system of international space law – which does not even allow for a regular review and consideration of the OST – is struggling to keep up. Space is the inheritance of humankind, yet the current generation of elders – as they have done with so many other parts of our global environment – have let things go and failed to shepherd in the much-needed system of rules to protect space for future generations.

It is not too late, but it will require international cooperation among the major space players: Russia, the US, China, India and Europe – hardly a promising line-up of collaborators in the current political climate.

Filling the governance gaps

Norms of behaviour and rules of the road need to be established for space before it becomes a 21st-century ‘wild west’ of technology and activity. Issues such as cleaning up space debris, the principle of non-interference, and how close satellites can manoeuvre to each other (proximity rules) need to be agreed as a set of international norms for space behaviour.

A cross-regional group of like-minded countries (for example Algeria, Canada, Chile, France, India, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Sweden, the UAE and the UK) should link up with UN bodies, including the Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), COPUOS and ITU, and key private-sector companies to kick-start a new process for a global code of conduct to establish norms and regulate behaviour in space.

The UN could be the host entity for this new approach – or it could be established in the way the Ottawa process for landmines was established, by a group of like-minded states with collective responsibility for, and collective hosting and funding of, the negotiations.

A new approach should also cover cybersecurity in space. The UN processes on space and cyber should intersect more to find ways to create synergies in their endeavours. And the problems ahead as regards spectrum management – particularly given the large number of small satellites and constellations that are to be launched in the near future – need urgent attention in ITU.

Notes

[i] All of these treaties and other documents can be found at UN Office for Outer Space Affairs (2002), United Nations Treaties and Principles on Outer Space, http://www.unoosa.org/pdf/publications/STSPACE11E.pdf.

[ii] ITU (undated), ‘ITU Radiocommunication Sector’, https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-R/Pages/default.aspx.

[iii] The NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE), ‘Tallinn Manual 2.0’, https://ccdcoe.org/research/tallinn-manual/.

This essay was produced for the 2019 edition of Chatham House Expert Perspectives – our annual survey of risks and opportunities in global affairs – in which our researchers identify areas where the current sets of rules, institutions and mechanisms for peaceful international cooperation are falling short, and present ideas for reform and modernization.