Just like the US Navy has lengthy protected sea lanes throughout battle, the navy may very well be referred to as upon to defend business satellites from assault, significantly because the Pentagon depends extra on business networks for communication and surveillance, the Area Pressure’s high normal stated final week.

In feedback at a convention in Hawaii on September 20, Gen. Likelihood Saltzman echoed many statements made by navy leaders over the previous few years: US navy area capabilities are beneath risk from China and Russia, navy leaders want extra details about what different international locations are doing in area, and business satellites are enjoying an ever-larger position within the navy’s area packages.

However Saltzman went slightly additional in his feedback when requested in regards to the navy’s position in defending business satellites from an assault. The questioner particularly requested how the US navy may reply if Russia attacked SpaceX’s Starlink broadband community, which Ukraine extensively makes use of for Web connectivity in its warfare with Russia, regardless of Elon Musk’s refusal to permit Ukraine to make use of Starlink companies on sure navy operations.

A sound navy goal?

Saltzman did not immediately handle the situation posed within the query, however he clearly advised the US navy has a duty to defend business belongings in area.

In a contemporary warfare, “there are going to be business entities, business organizations, business capabilities and belongings that get caught up within the conflicts,” Saltzman stated. “Area is not any completely different than sea lanes. It’s no completely different than civilian airliner site visitors in Europe proper now. The US has a protracted historical past of claiming we’re going to guard the issues that we must be profitable. So it might stand to motive that that very same philosophy would lengthen into area, and I’ve no motive to imagine that that can be completely different.”

A hypothetical navy operation to defend a business satellite tv for pc from an adversary’s assault would probably undergo US Area Command, a separate entity from the Area Pressure, which is charged with equipping and outfitting the navy’s combatant instructions with the individuals and know-how to hold out their missions.

Area Command is presently led by US Military Gen. James Dickinson. In July, Dickinson mainly punted on the same query about defending business satellites from a overseas assault.

“I do have a mission space defending and defending, and that is extensively identified, belongings on orbit,” he replied. “However to be trustworthy with you, these must be directed to me by, you already know, my boss, and my boss’s boss, ultimately if that have been to occur.”

Saltzman stated final week that it might be as much as Dickinson’s command, and in the end civilian management, to set the priorities on what business capabilities to defend from assault.

“The important thing can be how a lot capability do it’s a must to defend, and what are the issues that you just select to defend on the highest prioritization,” Saltzman stated.

Final October, a deputy director in Russia’s overseas ministry, Konstantin Vorontsov, stated using Western business satellites by Ukraine established “a particularly harmful development.” Whereas Vorontsov didn’t particularly title any satellites, he nearly actually was referring to SpaceX’s Starlink satellite tv for pc constellation, which has been utilized by Ukrainian troopers for communications and for monitoring Russian troop and tank actions.

Using civilian satellites for wartime functions, Vorontsov stated, basically made them navy targets. This was additionally the conclusion of Tara Brown, an officer within the Royal Air Pressure and a professor on the US Naval Conflict Faculty who focuses on area legislation.