On 31 March 2021, Australia’s Air Force chief Air Marshal Mel Hupfeld announced that a military space command is on the course to be established in 2022. In line with the 2020 Force Structure Plan, the military space command is part of Australia’s efforts to protect their access to space, space information, and space infrastructure. 

Signalling Australia’s participation in “Space Race 2.0”:

Australia re-founded its civilian space agency in 2018, amid growing calls that Australia needed to grasp space’s new economic opportunities and protect its national sovereignty in this new domain. The new Space Command aids the latter aim. It’s establishment was necessitated by a growing “Space Race 2.0” which started in 2007 as an “Asia space race” between China, India and Japan, and re-awoke US interest. Geopolitical tensions were subsequently given a new arena in space. While the new race is a multi-actor competition, it is dominated by Chinese and US interests and metrics. Currently, both have unilaterally put a Moon base and Mars exploration, as key targets, and they are creating rival legal-political frameworks for space exploitation, rather than cooperating.    

Private actors interested in space commercialization also present a challenge without a viable national space presence as they may ignore, or set up competing, legal regulatory frameworks, as Elon Musk attempted in Starlink’s customer service terms with the document requesting client agreement stating that Earth-based laws would not apply to Mars-based affairs. Instead Musk proposed a new legal framework based on “self-governing principles''. While amusing, there is a very real risk, as space exploration and exploitation becomes the norm, that de-jure and de-facto legal frameworks will move beyond terrestrial oversight and jurisdictions.

In this context, Australia is sensible to develop both a sovereign commercial presence to exploit a new economic frontier, and a military body dedicated to overseeing and safeguarding it. In the same way as the post-1943 Antarctic claimant states used commercial and scientific activity to prop up claims of sovereignty, Australia’s own ability to be active in the space domain reinforces its voice in future astropolitic developments.

The Economic benefits:

A larger Australian space presence also comes with direct economic and security benefits. The economic opportunities come in two categories. An immediate terrestrial sphere, and a longer-term Astro-economy.

For the terrestrial sphere, the move to increase Australia’s space security capacity will aid its aim of tripling the size of Australia’s space industry by 2030, creating new avenues of investment and readying its economy with the skills and infrastructure that will be needed for Australia to become a key space economy. Likewise, debris in the Earth’s orbit can collide with other active satellites, damaging them. This risk will only multiply; In 2020 there were over 400 new satellites launched. A major role of Space Command’s is preventing this, and thus safeguarding Australia’s economy from a damaging Kessler-style disruption. 

For the Astro-economy, Australia developing its space skills, security and infrastructure will in the long term allow it to offer competitive hosting for private space enterprises. For instance, asteroid mining is a lucrative prospect. 16 Psyche, an asteroid that NASA intends to visit in 2026 is estimated to be worth $10,000 quadrillion due to its nickel and iron content. The entire earth's 2019 economy was estimated at only $142 trillion. Other asteroids contain rare earth elements (REEs). REEs will suffer potential shortages on earth by 2030 as the take-off of the green transition relies heavily on them for its infrastructure and technology. The challenge of course will be to prevent a market crash from new-found oversupply. 

The Double-Edged Sword on the Security Frontier

Australia’s venture into the space domain under a military banner may prove important in the protection of space assets which are critical to the country’s security. While outerspace infrastructure has allowed the Australian Defence Force (ADF) to benefit from strategic geopolitical intelligence, they are vulnerable to counterspace threats if left undefended.

Crucially, the dependence of the ADF on space satellites means that outerspace threats translate to security threats on Earth. Additionally, increasing Australia’s independent space defence can wane the current reliance on foreign actors, such as the US. In the long term, this can give Australia more control over their space capabilities for their national goals and unpeg the space domain from foreign relations. 

On the other hand, introducing a military dimension to the space race could potentially create another arena of geopolitical tensions. Although Air Marshal Hupfeld has said that Australia is “not going to militarise space” the Air Force chief has labelled the space as a “warfighting domain”, deviating from NATO’s formal stance that space is an operational domain. Major space actors already show signs of geopolitical tensions. For example, Russia tested an anti-satellite missile in December last year and the US openly militarised space in 2018. Australia’s increased presence in the space domain will inevitably draw security and diplomatic questions for the nation. Additionally, the optics of involving the military in Australia’s space efforts could be a source of conflict with other nations. In particular, Australia has to be wary of the signal it is sending to China in the light of deteriorating space cooperation between the two countries. 

The potential of the space command to build Australia’s resilience in their space efforts and unlock the accompanying economic and security benefits is evident. Yet, the formulation and implementation of the space command needs to be made with caution to prevent Australia from escalating tension, conflict, or a military race in space.