This series, Space in Focus, explores key space trends, challenges, and policy issues that will confront the next administration as well as offers recommendations for how to navigate them.
Russian aggression against Ukraine highlights the interconnectedness of the space and cyberspace domains. In 2022, Russia conducted a cyberattack against Viasat, a California-based provider of high-speed satellite broadband services and secure networking systems covering military and commercial markets worldwide. The cyberattack against Viasat was meant to cripple Ukrainian command and control ahead of the ground invasion of Russian forces the following day. Lessons learned from this event include that conflicts may begin in the space and cyberspace domains before the ground war and that integrated space and cyberspace operations can work together to achieve combined military effect. As a result, the next administration must focus on combined space-cyberspace national policies and defense strategies addressing the interconnectedness between the two operational domains.
Of all the operational domains, cyberspace has the most significance for space operations. Generally understood, cyberspace is the world’s computer networks (both open and closed), the computers themselves, the transactional networks that send data for financial transactions, and the networks comprising control systems that enable machines to interact with one another. Space capabilities and services often rely on these same computer networks, information systems, and communication architectures to exchange space-enabled data and information.
The United States Space Force (USSF)’s Operations: Doctrine for Space Forces notes the interdependence between the two domains when explaining that the space link segment “includes the information operations environment (which includes cyberspace).” The USSF doctrine further explains, “Because space systems provide a significant amount of global bandwidth there is a symbiosis between operations in space and cyberspace.” Current network architectures and information-sharing approaches make space capabilities reliant upon cyberspace.
General Stephen Whiting, commander of the U.S. Space Command, emphasizes the potential threat of cyberattacks to space architectures: “Cyberspace is the soft underbelly of our global space networks.” Because of this risk, space professionals should focus more on defending against cyberattacks and how operations in the two domains can be mutually supported.
Overall, space and cyberspace domains share strategic elements like lines of communication, informational environment, network dimension, and link segment. The two domains also have the common attributes of unclear norms of behavior, difficulties with attribution, and transnational equities. Because both space and cyberspace domains overlap and are so inextricably linked, space warfare may be the same as cyber warfare in many circumstances.
U.S. space policy has noted the critical importance of cybersecurity when providing vital space capabilities and services. The 2020 White House’s National Space Policy underscored the need to integrate cybersecurity into space operations and capabilities to retain positive control of spacecraft and verify the integrity of critical functions, missions, and services they provide. The policy document advised that cybersecurity principles must be integrated across all phases of spacecraft design, development, acquisition, and deployment. Also, the policy emphasized the critical intersection between cyberspace and U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS) capabilities by noting the need to “improve the cybersecurity of GPS, its augmentations, and federally owned GPS-enabled devices, and foster commercial space sector adoption of cyber-secure GPS enabled systems consistent with cybersecurity principles for space systems.” In a 2023 cybersecurity strategy, the White House further emphasized its commitment to enhancing the security and resilience of U.S. space systems, including implementing cybersecurity principles for space systems.
Despite recent U.S. policy and strategy efforts, much more needs to be done. National policies and defense strategies need to reflect the fluidity and interconnectedness between space and cyberspace operations during peace, competition, crisis, and conflict (i.e., competition continuum). Toward this end, U.S. policymakers and USSF guardians must take several initiatives:
- Develop combined space-cyberspace national policies and defense strategies providing a holistic and synchronized approach to integrated space and cyberspace operations across the competition continuum.
- Reflect in the National Security Strategy, National Military Strategy, and National Defense Strategy that adversary actions in the space and cyberspace domains may serve as a precursor to terrestrial hostile actions, along with directing the need to develop response options to counter such adversary space and cyberspace aggression.
- Advance space professional education and training that includes cyber warfare and the protection of national interests in cyberspace because of the military implications for space operations.
- Update White House policies that direct the integration of cybersecurity into spacecraft designs, networks, and operations, including GPS capabilities and services.
- Remember the frequently forgotten ground segment—which includes the end user, ground terminals, and computer networks—in policies and strategies, given that the ground segment serves as a direct intersection between space and cyberspace operations.
Given the interconnectedness and interdependencies between space and cyber operations, U.S. policies and strategies must fully account for military actions and effects that traverse back and forth between the two operational domains. Policymakers, military planners, and strategists must all be well-versed in the intricacies and missions occurring at the intersection of space and cyberspace.
Dr. John J. Klein is a senior fellow and strategist at Falcon Research, Inc., and adjunct professor at George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute and Georgetown University’s Security Studies Program. He is the author of the recently published book Space Warfare: Strategy, Principles and Policy (2024).
