Page 19 - Australian Defence Magazine Dec21-Jan22

DECEMBER 2021-JANUARY 2022 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
DEFENCE BUSINESS SPACE SUMMIT 19
contested space. “The first shots of the next war will be in space and cyber, and so we’d better be prepared for that,” he told delegates. “For the record, we don’t call space a warf- ighting domain because that upsets some people. We call it an operational domain – that will involve warfighting.”
Noting Australia’s close co-operation with the US, AIRC- DRE Gordon said local organisations are very effective in the development of sovereign Space Domain Awareness (SDA) capabilities being delivered under JP9360. “So that when people do bad things in space, we can be assured by our own analysis and our own access to data – so that we can make our own verified judgements and then match that up with the other information we’re getting,” he said. “There are lots of opportunities in SDA and there is a lot of talent in Australia that is ready to respond.”
AIRCDRE Gordon added that satellite communications were another area where Australian industry has credibil- ity. “SATCOM is an area where we have developed a fair bit of expertise at using and managing the capability, and the ground structure that goes with that,” he explained. “One of the priorities of the Force Structure Plan is to get more sovereign SATCOM, because communications will be key to the future.”
Both Air Commodores also referred to the recent Rus- sian Anti-Satellite (ASAT) missile test, which destroyed the redundant Cosmos 1408 satellite and created around 1,500 additional pieces of space debris in the process.
LEFT: Over 200 delegates attended ADM’s third annual Space Summit, held in Canberra’s Hyatt Hotel on 24 November
ABOVE: AIRCDRE Nick Hogan, Director General - Space Domain Review presents at the ADM Space Summit in Canberra
“Fifteen hundred pieces of debris is a bad outcome,” AIRC- DRE Gordon observed. “But it’s proof-positive that hoping everyone plays nicely in space is not a winning strategy. We have to be realistic about the environment we face and there are a whole bunch of efforts across the globe to shape behav- iours, to make these kinds of things unacceptable.”
HIGHLIGHTS AND RECURRING THEMES
Other highlights included presentations from many of the sponsors, informative roundtable discussions and an ad- dress from Rebecca Shrimpton, Head-Defence Space and Infrastructure at Austrade, who looked at Australia’s place in the global space industry from a commercial perspective.
However, it was the recurring threads mentioned earlier which arguably provided the most food for thought, includ- ing a sobering presentation from ASPI’s Senior Analyst in Defence Strategy, Dr Malcolm Davis. While looking at the threats posed in space, including hypersonic weapons, Davis said the ADF will in the future need resilient space capabilities. “The first steps are to build space deterrence – we need to be able to demonstrate to an adversary that their ASAT capabilities ultimately don’t pay off,” he sug- gested. “They might be able to bring down some satellites, but it’s impossible to do a space ‘Pearl Harbour’ and take down everything quickly and we can always reconstitute space capabilities quickly, because we’re building a sover- eign launch industry in this country.”
On the matter of a responsive sovereign launch capabil- ity, perhaps these words during Gilmour Space Technolo- gies founder and CEO Adam Gilmour’s presentation pro- vide an insight into the urgency. “The Americans are very, very, urgently looking for tactically responsive space – the ability to get up into space within 24 hours or less notice,” he said. “The US Air Force and Department of Defense has been buying launches from pretty much all small launch vehicle companies in the US. Almost every week there is something the US is doing on the defensive side in space. They are extremely active in this area.” ■
ADM ROYA GHODSI