Defence takes to high ground to join star wars

AUSTRALIA joins star wars this month when the Defence Space Division officially begins operations with a brief to urgently look to take “the ultimate high ground” for a future conflict.

Defence spent more than eight months last year creating a classified Space Strategy blueprint that concluded national security was compromised by a lack of sovereign space capabilities.

Specifically, Australian society was totally reliant on space and satellites for GPS in cars, the banking system and all forms of communications and surveillance, which were prone to attack.

Russia tested groundbased missiles to shoot down one of its own defunct satellites in November which caused international concern.

As part of a demonstration for the ADF last July, the US on the ground in Australia also disrupted satellite operations, with no kinetic attack, to highlight how easy it was.

Defence is opposed to weaponising space but said a sovereign capability was needed to defend national interests.

Space Division’s inaugural chief, Air Vice-marshal Catherine Roberts, said aside from Russia, China and Iran had a level of anti-satellite capability.

In the next five years the number of low earth orbit satellites will leap from 3742 to 100,000 satellites, making space a congested and contested realm.

“That stresses the need for us to have the space domain awareness we need so that we can see what’s going on with the satellites, and manoeuvre and do something with them if they are under threat,” she told a parliamentary briefing last year. “They operate at quite high speeds but essentially we need to monitor what’s going on so that, if we need to, we can move satellites that Australia is particularly relying on.”