Europe needs to up its space game to fend off Musk, Russia and China

Elon Musk and adversarial nations like China and Russia will dominate space if European countries don’t get their act together, a top NATO commander told POLITICO. 

“There can be no European sovereignty without efforts in space. Today, a major awakening is necessary, even urgent, for Europeans to get started,” NATO’s supreme allied commander transformation, Admiral Pierre Vandier, said in an interview. 

“The Americans themselves are calling for a form of emancipation, for Europeans to come of age and be better on a number of subjects — and that includes space,” he added. “That’s a huge opportunity.” 

Russia’s war on Ukraine has shown the importance of space assets for battlefield communications and intelligence gathering. It has also painfully highlighted Europe’s reliance on a very limited number of U.S. companies — mainly Musk’s SpaceX — as the EU’s rival IRIS² system is not expected to be operational before 2030.

In parallel, space is increasingly becoming a potential combat zone of its own.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Space Command described space as “a highly contested strategic environment,” referring specifically to China and Russia and adding that the help of allies will be key to achieving superiority. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte also expressed concerns that Moscow is seeking to deploy nuclear weapons in space. 

“Today, we’re seeing a number of players introducing space weapons,” Vandier said, mentioning orbital weapons — bombs put in orbit that can fall when ordered and avoid detection by early warning systems — as well as weaponry aiming to jam, pierce or de-orbit satellites. 

“That means we have to keep a much closer eye on what others are doing and be resilient to their attempts to destabilize us,” he added. 

New architecture, new business model 

The rapid militarization of space is changing the domain’s architecture — and that requires Europeans to rethink their companies’ business model, Vandier said. In space, the military leans on commercial infrastructure and most satellites and constellations are dual-use, meaning they can have both civilian and military purposes. 

To be resilient, he explained, nations can no longer rely only on large satellites in geostationary orbit and now also need backup constellations in low Earth orbit. Satellites in low orbit are cheaper, between $100,000 and $150,000 each, compared with $300 million to $400 million for a single geostationary satellite, Vandier said. They can also be launched more often and at a lower cost.

While Europeans are competitive when it comes to geostationary satellites thanks to companies including ArianeGroup, the so-called New Space market of relatively new aerospace companies is dominated mainly by SpaceX, which has slashed launch costs thanks to its reusable rockets.

“The economic model chosen by the Europeans is based on geostationary satellites. Today, the question is: Aren’t Europeans at a point where they need to change their model?” Vandier said. “From an economic point of view, if they don’t, I think they’re going to get kicked out.”

The first launch of the Spectrum rocket by German startup Isar Aerospace exploded less than a minute after takeoff on March 30 from Norway’s Andøya spaceport. | Marijan Murat/picture alliance via Getty Images

“Today, Europeans are far removed from the center of the market. That’s a huge hindrance because when it comes to European sovereignty, it’s overwhelmingly the American offer — whether military or commercial — that provides the services we need,” he said.

Some European startups are trying to penetrate New Space — but with limited success. The first launch of the Spectrum rocket by German startup Isar Aerospace exploded less than a minute after takeoff on March 30 from Norway’s Andøya spaceport. Last month, Norwegian defense company Kongsberg launched its first satellite but via SpaceX. 

Vandier has ideas about how Europeans could try to stay in the game. 

The NATO commander, who has long complained that it’s easier to be a tech entrepreneur in the United States than in Europe, pitched a European Defense Act to the European Commission. The legislation would “create the conditions for the emergence of new tech in defense by setting financial, regulatory and tax conditions that encourage young entrepreneurs to develop dual-use technology for Europe,” he said.

He also backs the U.S. call for Europeans to create a space marketplace modeled after its own, which allows the U.S. Space Command to benefit from commercial technology for space domain awareness and battlefield intelligence.

“The Americans have asked us to work on making a space marketplace like their Joint Commercial Operations, where you can buy services through speed dating,” Vandier said. “That’s interesting.”

NATO’s ‘active role’

NATO is playing an increasingly active role in space, according to Vandier, but there is more work ahead to properly divide up tasks among allies.

“We’re equipping ourselves with the tools we need to understand and maneuver strategically, in particular through space domain awareness. We’ll be able to see, understand and coordinate action, and tell the 32 allies: ‘This is what’s going on, this is what happened,'” he explained. “That’s what we call attribution.”

NATO, as an alliance, can then decide to take counter-measures. “That’s going to give us power: It wouldn’t have the same scope or political significance if only France or the United States were to react,” Vandier said.

Besides the United States and France, NATO’s main space powers are the U.K., Italy, Norway, Canada and Germany, according to the French admiral.

NATO countries recognized space as a proper operational domain in 2019. However, this year’s updated capability targets are not taking space into account as much as other areas, such as land, air and sea. NATO needs first to properly understand what nations can do and what’s needed before allocating objectives, Vandier explained. 

“Countries will either divide up what’s missing or ask NATO to acquire it in the form of services. These remain discussions that will be very interesting in the years to come as part of the next round of the NATO Defence Planning Process,” he said. “We could also move toward more shared models, like co-ownership of military satcom constellations.”

In the short term, however, the admiral doesn’t expect NATO’s June leaders’ summit in The Hague to go big on space. 

“The big topic will be the 5 percent,” he said, referring to U.S. President Donald Trump’s demand that allies spend 5 percent of their GDP on defense. “It would be nice to have a statement on space, but I don’t think we’re there yet.” 

CORRECTION: This article has been updated to correct the cost of a geostationary satellite. It is $300 million to $400 million.