Allied Command Transformation is enhancing NATO’s understanding of the Space Domain and driving interoperability of NATO and Allied space capabilities through multiple crosscutting efforts.
Allied Command Transformation is raising awareness about the importance of the Space Domain to the Alliance by enhancing Space Domain Awareness and improving common understanding of the space environment, including threats and risks. It also seeks to enhance engagement and cooperation with space-focused industry and academia, and improve the interoperability of national space capabilities. In doing so, these efforts further the Command’s efforts to integrate Space as an Operational Domain and advance NATO’s transformation into a Multi-Domain Operations-enabled Alliance.
The most recent achievement of the Command in the Space Domain is the accreditation of the NATO Space Centre of Excellence on July 14th, 2023, as the Alliance’s 29th Centre of Excellence. Located in Toulouse, France, the Centre will support NATO in accelerating work on space-related matters, deepening and expanding its use of the Space Domain, and support the integration of space in NATO, which is essential for the conduct of the Alliance’s activities, missions, and operations. It will also raise ‘Space IQ’ across the Alliance, stimulate interoperability of space-related assets, and act as a bridge between NATO and all relevant national and international space organizations, including the commercial sector and academia. In doing so, the Centre complements the efforts of the existing NATO Space Centre in Ramstein, Germany, which acts as NATO’s sole operational hub.
Allied Command Transformation has also engaged with subject matter experts and practitioners at academic and industry forums such as the Munich Security Conference, the 38th Space Symposium, and the French Air and Space Academy. Through these efforts, Allied Command Transformation’s senior leadership communicated the importance of its work in the Space Domain to NATO’s broader transformation efforts, as outlined by the NATO Warfighting Capstone Concept. Speaking at the French Air and Space Academy, General Philippe Lavigne, Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, highlighted the importance of space in enabling Multi-Domain Operations, stating, “Space is key to achieving this ambitious but essential… objective. Whether for situation awareness, for the credibility of our Deterrence and Defence posture, or simply to conduct operations, continuous and secure access to space capabilities, services, and products is essential.” These outreach efforts also provided the Command with important opportunities to bring together industry, government, and academia to collaborate and address space-related issues, as well as enhance NATO’s understanding of space.
Another important aspect of Allied Command Transformation’s outreach efforts was its leading role in the recently completed NATO Innovation Challenge, which saw academia, industry, and start-ups pitch their ideas for monitoring the Arctic from space to seabed. Senior leadership from the Command helped select the three winners of this challenge, with the top prize going to Finland’s Kuva Space for their solution “Constellation of Hyperspectral Imagers in Support of Situation Awareness in the Arctic.” Through the successful completion of this Innovation Challenge, Allied Command Transformation was able to drive innovative solutions for this problem-set, and help the NATO Command Structure and Allies enhance the defence innovation ecosystem.
The Command has also encouraged interoperability of NATO and Allied space systems, with its interoperability testing at the 2023 Coalition Warrior Interoperability Exercise, better known as CWIX, testing the interoperability of experimental, developmental, and fielded capabilities in a coalition scenario. In particular, the Command’s Space Branch tested three software-based tools at CWIX 2023 designed to address gaps in current operational requirements and support the Space Domain Awareness operational function, with the goal of improving the value of these tools for commanders. In doing so, they assessed the ability of these tools to deliver a NATO Space Recognized Picture and their interoperability with NATO and Allied systems. These efforts will continue at CWIX 2024 with the modelling more complex space systems and testing new visualization tools that will, for example, show the fields of view of adversary satellites within the battlespace.
NATO’s approach to space is guided by its overarching Space Policy, that was publicly released in 2022. The Space Domain remains essential to the Alliance’s deterrence and defence, with space-based capabilities providing critical civilian and military functions such as: Space Situational Awareness, Positioning, Navigation, and Timing, Shared Early Warning, Environmental Monitoring, secure Satellite Communications, Space Security, and Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance. NATO is integrating the benefits of space into its core tasks of deterrence and defence, crisis prevention and management, and, where appropriate, cooperative security, in a manner consistent with international law. The Alliance is also supporting the development of international law and norms in cooperation with partners such as the European Union and United Nations.