Over the past several years, the world has witnessed the evolution of space from a benign environment for exploration and scientific inquiry to a highly contested, congested domain governed by competitive geopolitics. As James Helle, Systems and Programs Analyst at Stellar Solutions, articulated during a panel discussion he moderated at the 2025 Defense in Space Conference (DiSC), “The boundaries between civil, commercial, and military space activities are blurring with rising competition among major powers. The ability to protect, secure, and defend access to space has become a core element of nations’ and allied partners’ defense strategies.”
During this DiSC session, experts from NATO, RUSI, Telespazio Germany, and Technische Universität Chemnitz examined how rapidly changing geopolitics and adversarial threats are redefining space, and the impact they will have on the space industry, space governance, and global economies.
NATO Works Toward Deterring Space Threats
Helle opened the discussion by asking Daniel Hilgert, NATO’s Senior Space Coordinator, how space capabilities are currently helping to stabilize and deter threats in NATO territories. Hilgert explained that he has observed a trend among global militaries toward increased reliance on commercial satellite services, which he views positively in terms of deterrence but notes that it also poses challenges.
“It creates a lot of vulnerabilities, especially when it comes to SATCOM and space-based ISR,” explained Hilgert. “We’ve seen that a lot of nations are heavily relying on single providers, though the commercial market is so diverse and vibrant. This is something that we really need to think about when it comes to threats in the space environment.”
According to Hilgert, NATO is launching numerous initiatives to address these vulnerabilities and to deter geopolitical threats.
“We’re developing a marketplace for space services, which is very important to diversifying our [SATCOM] sources and becoming more resilient,” said Hilgert. “We’re also working on threat sharing and exploring how we can unclassify, or downclassify, information that we can share with commercial partners, but also incentivize commercial partners to share information with us.”
Hilgert said NATO is also developing a new program, THOR, to address how to execute offensive counterspace operations and capabilities.
“THOR is really about trying to develop playbooks to see what actions we would take for X, Y, and Z scenarios, and what kind of capabilities we would need to procure to execute those playbooks,” said Hilgert. “[THOR] is going to be really important. It will not be a one-time effort; we will do this continuously because we see how Russia and China are learning how we operate, are adapting themselves, and updating their technology accordingly. We need to update ourselves as well.”
Top Geopolitical Threats in Space
Helle delved deeper into the space threat topic and asked the panelists which, from their perspectives, are the most concerning counterspace events or geopolitical behaviors that have recently occurred or may occur in the future. Dr. habil. Antje Nötzold, Research Associate and Lecturer at Technische Universität Chemnitz, has certain capability advancements coming out of China at the top of her list.
“When we look at space and counterspace activities, I’m not just worried about all the dog fighting we see between Chinese and U.S. satellites, which are now becoming real maneuvers and operations,” said Dr. Nötzold. “What [concerns me the most] was what happened in July, when the Chinese managed to have a successful docking of satellites in geostationary orbit and refueled a satellite. Why [does this concern me the most]? Because it shows that China is ahead of the United States. It brings more ambiguity to the whole dynamic, as we don’t know much about China’s intentions. I would say it also changes a lot of the dynamics for future in-orbit service operations.”
For Professor Trevor Taylor, Director of the Defence, Industries and Society Programme at RUSI, avoiding kinetic combat in the space domain to maintain everyday life on Earth is one of his top concerns.
“Much of our social and commercial life depends on assets that are in space,” said Professor Taylor. “After learning about the Kessler effect, if combat occurs in space, it’s going to be very difficult to control. If two parties are at war, such control becomes very difficult. I would like to see more effort to keep the combat piece out [of space].”
Dr. Ivan Janes, Chief Systems and Products Officer at Telespazio Germany, cited SATCOM security as his primary concern. For Dr. Janes, security across all segments of the SATCOM triad must be strengthened to maintain the critical infrastructure services people depend on.
“Satellite services are embedded in the critical infrastructure services on Earth,” Dr. Janes said. “The energy, military, healthcare, and financial sectors depend on the availability of space services. We have a space, ground, and link segment for all space services. All those layers are only as strong as their weakest link. We must make sure that all the links are hardened to the level that we need.”
Hilgert believes that world governments must heavily invest in bolstering resilience measures in the space domain and be proactive by preparing for any type of crisis that may affect space services on Earth.
“I think the biggest threat is not actually in space, but on this planet,” said Hilgert. ”[Space domain threats] threaten our economies, our societies, and our militaries. We really need to be more proactive. I think we are all pioneers in this respect, because, for NATO, space is a new operational domain. We can really try to get things right, be proactive, and prepare for a conflict before it happens. [We must] invest in [SATCOM] resilience for our civilian infrastructure.”
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