The race to put weapons in space

0:00Speaker 1:The United States now has on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the joint force against hostile adversary action.

0:11Speaker 2:And with that, a whole new galactic battleground just opened up.

0:15Speaker 1:It is critically important that we maintain our dominance not only in the air but in space.

0:21Speaker 2:The United States has declared it has weapons in space and it's ready to use them.

0:26Speaker 1:We've had to take steps to make sure that that when we're threatened, we can take care of that.

0:31Speaker 2:So we're entering a new era where the opening moves of a war could happen hundreds of kilometres above us. I'm Daniel James, and you're listening to 7am. Today, senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Dr Malcolm Davis, on the space weapons now at the ready and the likelihood of an orbital offensive. It's Monday, September 21. Malcolm, it's long been suspected, but we now have seen the US come out and admit it, that it has weapons in space. What's the significance of that and why now?

1:15Speaker 3:Essentially, what the US has done is respond to developments by China and Russia, who have been developing weapons in space for many decades.

1:23Speaker 1:We continue to ensure we remain ready to meet the challenges of evolving threats wherever they exist.

1:31Speaker 3:China first tested an anti-satellite missile in 2007. Russians did the same thing in 2021. Both countries have been doing what's known as co-orbital operations, essentially, which demonstrate the capabilities and the technology for co-orbital anti-satellite weapons. So the U.S. has been observing this And I think they've now recognized that they can no longer passively look on as the Chinese and the Russians develop counter-space weapons.

1:59Speaker 1:Space Force launch sites have already hosted 116 orbital launches this year. I think it was actually 117 after yesterday, and it'll be 118 tomorrow. Nearly 60% of all launches on the planet. This is allowing us to maintain and build our commercial and military space advantages.

2:19Speaker 3:And this is really about deterrence. It's about strengthening deterrence in space to send the message to China and Russia not to use these counter space weapons.

2:29Speaker 2:And what kind of weapons do you think we're talking about here?

2:32Speaker 3:Probably talking about what's known as soft kill weapons. So the missiles that the Chinese and the Russians tested were hard kill. They were physically destroyed a satellite, created a huge cloud of space debris each time. I think the Americans don't want to do that. What they want to do is disable rather than physically destroy. So we're talking about jamming capabilities. We're talking about electronic warfare, potentially directed energy weapons, such as high energy laser or high power microwave systems. Also the ability to do cyber attacks on satellites could be something that could be done from the ground.

3:08Speaker 3:But in terms of these orbital space weapons, I think we are talking electronic warfare and directed energy weapons.

3:15Speaker 2:And so strategically, how would these weapons be used? Because it's not like Star Wars or Star Trek up there. We're not talking battles in space. It's more about blinding enemy satellites to achieve the advantage for battles here on Earth.

3:28Speaker 3:It's a concept called orbital warfare. And essentially what the system is, is that the US has counter space capabilities that are designed to prevent the Chinese or the Russians launching attacks on our critical satellite technologies. We depend on satellites for everything we do, whether it's war fighting or economies or societies. And it's not like Star Wars. It's not like Star Trek where you basically have necessarily fighters shooting around dogfighting in space. It's a much more slow and deliberate process to be able to prevent an adversary from attacking our satellites or to utilize our counter space capabilities to deny the adversary the use of their satellites in a war situation. So that's the sort of thing we are talking about.

4:14Speaker 2:What are the laws governing the weaponization of space?

4:17Speaker 3:1967 Outer Space Treaty Article 4 says that the deployment of nuclear weapons in space is banned, okay? It says nothing about the deployment of non-nuclear weapons. So there's nothing legally that prevents the US, China, or Russia from deploying non-nuclear weapons in space. But you cannot deploy nuclear weapons in space, and the Russians are moving towards that goal.

4:43Speaker 2:A lot of people may not realise this, but there's actually been quite a long history of militarisation in space. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

4:51Speaker 3:Well, certainly space has been militarised since the beginning of the space age, really, certainly back to the early 1960s.

5:01Speaker 4:In the middle of the 20th century, for the first time in history, man reached beyond his planet and began to probe the mysteries of space.

5:12Speaker 3:Satellites have been used to support military forces on Earth. Going all the way back to the Vietnam War, for example, and during the Cold War, we used satellites for missile early warning.

5:23Speaker 4:Signals from satellite instruments are received as a kind of electronic shorthand, or code. The various signals are identified by changes in their length, in the time intervals between them, and in their frequency.

5:39Speaker 3:What we're talking about now is weaponization, which is different from militarization in the sense that we are talking weapons in space. Now, space weapons, anti-satellite weapons, counter-space capabilities have really been in development since the days of the Cold War. Both the Soviet Union and the United States had anti-satellite weapons, but they refrained from deploying them. Since the end of the Cold War, you've seen a different dynamic emerge whereby China and Russia have both been moving much more aggressively.

6:12Speaker 5:CBS News, the United States has been tracking Russia's development of a nuclear-capable anti-satellite weapon in space. The White House has not confirmed if the weapon would have nuclear capabilities, but a spokesman did say it would not be used against humans nor cause physical destruction on Earth.

6:30Speaker 3:And now you have a situation where the US is recognising that The space domain is a warfighting domain. It's no longer a peaceful global commons. And so therefore, you know, the US has to respond to that challenge. And that's what they've done this week with this announcement about deploying space weapons.

6:48Speaker 2:And how is America's interest in space more broadly ramped up under Donald Trump?

6:53Speaker 3:I think it's actually one of the very few things that Trump has done well, in the sense that you have seen Trump make clear a strong interest in going back to the moon and not just going to essentially visit, but to stay and establish a lunar base.

7:08Speaker 4:Before the end of my term, American astronauts will return to the lunar surface, and we're looking forward to that.

7:15Speaker 2:We'll do it, and we're then going to the next step.

7:18Speaker 4:And when we do, they'll plant this very important flag to mark the site of the first permanent American settlement on the moon.

7:25Speaker 2:They're going to have a settlement. They're building a settlement up in the moon.

7:28Speaker 3:You've seen the Trump administration support the development of nuclear-powered and propelled spacecraft, which will be essential if humanity wants to explore beyond the moon and go to Mars or even beyond. And you've seen, you know, the Trump administration really support NASA, really support commercial space, be very supportive of the US Space Force. So out of all the areas of policy where Trump tends to make a mess of things, space is one of the areas where he doesn't.

8:01Speaker 2:Still to come. Australia's plans for space warfare. Malcolm, where does Australia fit into all of this? Is space warfare part of our defence force?

8:19Speaker 3:Yes, in the sense that if you look at the National Defence Strategy, which was released earlier this year, and the early iterations of that, they both make very clear that space control, which is what we're talking about, is an important task for the ADF. We do what's known as space domain awareness, where we have ground-based facilities, including out at Exmouth in Western Australia, that look up into space and monitor what's happening in space. That gives us some sort of early warning about hostile activities in space.

8:51Speaker 3:But at the moment, we have no means to defend satellites in orbit. So that's the next task for the ADF in space, which is to develop space control capabilities alongside the Americans, but also with other regional partners, such as the Japanese in particular, and develop the means whereby we can work together to strengthen deterrence in space, to strengthen resilience in space. And part of that will be space control, including soft-kill capabilities.

9:20Speaker 2:You mentioned that this move from America comes after China and Russia's own developments in space. What's been their response to this announcement from the U.S.

9:29Speaker 3:Well, the Chinese and the Russians quite understandably are exploiting this to try and claim that the Americans here are being the aggressor, that they are the ones that are causing a space arms race. And so therefore, America should step back. And the Chinese are claiming that they only see the space in peaceful terms.

9:48Speaker 2:We urge the U.S.

9:49Speaker 5:To stop expanding its military preparations in outer space and take concrete actions to safeguard global strategic stability.

9:56Speaker 3:In actual fact, all the evidence suggests the Chinese and the Russians have been very active in developing space weapons over the last decades, and they've been the ones that have tested space weapons. So I think that the Chinese and the Russians have seen this as a political opportunity to push a particular line. An awful lot of people will believe that line and sense that the Americans are the ones at fault here. But I really have to emphasize the Americans are only responding to a clear threat and they're responding in a way that's designed to strengthen deterrence rather than necessarily become aggressive.

10:27Speaker 2:So obviously there's a risk that this could escalate tensions between the three countries and lead to military action in space. Is that a real possibility?

10:35Speaker 3:Look, I don't think this announcement will necessarily cause that scenario. But what certainly I think the Americans are anticipating is that in the next war, at the outset of that war, or even prior to that war, You will see what's known as gray zone operations in space where adversaries utilize counter space capabilities to try and attack our critical space systems. So the Americans want to be ready for that. And this is part of the process. So I don't think this announcement will lead to escalation per se. I think what the risk is, is that it's highlighting the risk that space war will happen in the next war.

11:12Speaker 2:You mentioned America will be looking to use weapons that disable rather than destroy satellites because of the risk of space debris. What's the risk there? What are the flow and effects if debris is set loose?

11:23Speaker 3:Well, certainly, if you physically destroy a satellite, you create a massive cloud of space debris. In 2021, the Russians tested a direct anti-satellite weapon on one of their satellites and destroyed it, creating a huge cloud of space debris that is still up there today, still threatening satellites. And at the time, the debris was threatened not only the International Space Station, but also the Chinese space station as well. So both space stations had to alter their orbit to avoid space debris created by that test. If the Chinese and the Russians were to make extensive use of these kinetic kill ASATs, then you would have massive amounts of debris in space to the point whereby you couldn't even access space. You couldn't deploy stuff into space. That's what's known as a Kessler syndrome. and essentially it takes decades to clear space of all that debris before we can start using space again. So this is why I think that the Americans certainly, ourselves and other Western countries, but also I would have to say the Chinese, are probably going down the path of this soft kill rather than

12:28Speaker 3:necessarily the hard kill. The Russians, however, are still probably persisting with the hard kill, and more worryingly, the Russians are developing a nuclear weapons-based anti-satellite capability that would be, if it's deployed, would be a direct violation of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty.

12:46Speaker 2:I mean, the Kessler Cascade, if it was to come into effect, would serve no one, wouldn't it? Yeah, absolutely.

12:53Speaker 3:And I think this is why, you know, one of the things we probably can work towards in terms of space law and space arms control is a prohibition on kinetic kill ASATs, a prohibition on destructive ASATs that that create space debris. And if we could get China on side on this, they could then pressure Russia both to step back from that and also the nuclear weapons-based ASAT program the Russians are developing, because it's certainly not in China's interest to see that particular capability deployed either. The best we can do is constrain space weaponization to make sure that countries don't use kinetic kill ASATs and certainly try and put pressure on on the Russians not to deploy their nuclear weapons based ASAP, which would be a direct violation of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty.

13:45Speaker 2:Malcolm, it's a fascinating and terrifying area, but thanks for telling us about it. My pleasure.

13:50Speaker 3:I was happy to help.

14:06Speaker 2:Also in the news, three women have been killed in separate domestic violence-related incidents in New South Wales, in a spate of just 24 hours. A 90-year-old woman was stabbed to death in Bondi Beach, where a 47-year-old man, known to the woman, was arrested and charged with her murder. A 23-year-old woman was also fatally stabbed in Wagga Wagga, while a 70-year-old woman was found dead at a home in the state's Northern Tablelands region. And Ed Sheeran has called the situation in Gaza catastrophic and unjustifiable. As he returned to the stage for the first time since the McLemore controversy, Sheeran, who was heavily criticised for failing to back his opening act's Free Palestine comments, says he had to take and make difficult decisions and has made mistakes apologising at a concert in Philadelphia. I'm Daniel James. Thanks for listening to 7am. We'll be back tomorrow.

14:59Speaker 3:Thank you.