The significance of space has changed fundamentally over the past few decades. Though it’s a research domain that has never been entirely free of political tensions, these days it has become a fiercely contested strategic territory of considerable future economic importance. The original philosophy behind the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which defined space as a peaceful domain for the benefit of all humankind, appears to have been increasingly superseded by this new reality. Dual-use technologies, geopolitical rivalries and indeed growing commercial interests have ushered in a new phase in astropolitics in which power, dependencies and questions of security and resilience play a central role.
The economic dynamism of this development is considerable: the global space economy is growing by around nine percent per year on average and could triple by 2035. According to studies, it will be worth over 1.5 trillion euros by then. Satellite constellations, new launcher systems and private-sector innovations by companies such as SpaceX, Blue Origin or OHB in the German city of Bremen are revolutionising the market for launch vehicles, communication, navigation and Earth observation.
However, such technological advances also make modern societies ever more dependent on space-based infrastructure. Countries that have satellite-supported time, communication and observation systems and that control how these are accessed by third parties wield considerable influence. It is therefore crucial for Europe, and especially Germany, to take more targeted steps to increase their ability to act and ensure their technological sovereignty and security in space.
The Russian war of aggression has made it abundantly clear just how vulnerable modern states are to threats from and in space – not only theoretically: when it first launched its invasion, Russia succeeded in massively disrupting Ukraine’s communication and navigation capabilities by hacking the Viasat satellites used by Kyiv. The impact would have been far greater if the private company Starlink hadn’t made commercial satellite communication available so swiftly and if it hadn’t been for Western reconnaissance infrastructure – this played a vital role in ensuring that Ukraine was not defeated in the first months of the war. The Ukraine war illustrates only too well how space has become a decisive operational factor in modern warfare.
At the same time, the international order in space is becoming increasingly fragmented. Programmes such as the US-led Artemis Accords on the one hand – an international alliance of partners including the European Space Agency (ESA), Japan and Canada that aims to return to the moon to explore its surface and establish a permanent presence there – and the Sino-Russian International Lunar Research Station on the other, aren’t only rivals in technological terms; they are also striving for very different world orders. Competition for territory and resources – especially though not exclusively on the “eighth continent”, as the moon is also known – and the serious issue of space debris are only making matters worse.
Against this backdrop, it seems all the more problematic that large parts of German society, and indeed the academic community, are still afflicted by a kind of “space blindness”: there is little knowledge about how ubiquitous space is as critical infrastructure or about the vital role it plays in keeping today’s technology-driven and knowledge-based societies up and running. Even in higher education, too little attention is paid to this outside the fields of technology and engineering. Space is frequently regarded as a specialist technical field rather than a strategic issue.
This view is much too short-sighted, however, not to mention potentially dangerous. Space infrastructure is the invisible backbone of modern societies. Space is also inextricably linked to questions of global future relevance. Without space research and the technologies and satellite data it produces, it will be virtually impossible to achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations or effectively tackle global challenges such as climate change, development issues and food security. UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed was right to describe space as the “foundation of our present”.
Sustainable success in space, in terms of economic competitiveness and security policy sovereignty, requires not only top-class achievements in engineering, science and technology, but also sound astropolitical, economic and legal reflection. Anyone wishing to shape the future of space must think strategically. Only by adopting such a holistic perspective will Germany be able to lastingly safeguard its interests, values and security needs in space in a self-determined manner.
It is very encouraging that the importance of this field has been recognised in German politics: Germany now has a fully functional Ministry of Space, an ambitious and comprehensive space safety and security strategy and – thanks not least to the role played by the German Space Agency and the country’s highly dynamic Space Innovation Hub – robust and expert institutional structures in the space sector. In this context, what is urgently needed now is for higher education policy to be strategically realigned. It is imperative for German universities to develop expertise in astropolitics, astro-commerce and space law – be it by endowing professorships, reassigning existing chairs or taking advantage of Germany’s Excellence Strategy at federal and state level. Countries such as the USA, China, France and Russia have made more progress in this respect and have already developed corresponding academic clusters. In Germany, however, there is to date not a single professorship dedicated to strategic space policy or space economy – even though there are nearly 16,000 chairs across Germany in law, social science and economics.
We need to acknowledge the strategic realities of space and develop or improve our existing technical and academic skills so that we can bring our own values to bear to this dynamic field of future relevance in a way that is powerful, confident and strategically promising. History teaches us that Europe only becomes capable of action in response to a crisis. In the case of space, it would be advisable to recognise this necessity as early as possible. For one thing is clear: those who ignore space are, in effect, also ignoring one of the essential foundations of the future global order here on Earth. ―
