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These technology advances have \u201cthe potential to shatter paradigms\u201d of how the military thinks about collecting data on an adversary\u2019s movements, the report said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cRather than relying exclusively on high-demand, low-density government-owned national assets, commercial sensing offers orders of magnitude more coverage and revisit rates that can augment and queue the sensing capabilities provided by more exquisite government-owned and government-operated systems,\u201d the report states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Todd Harrison, director of the Aerospace Security Project at CSIS and one of the report\u2019s authors said this \u201crevolution\u201d is part of what has made open-source information sharing such a prominent feature of Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat is what has really caused this revolution in commercial space remote sensing capabilities and brought us to the point where we are today,\u201d Harrison said. \u201cAnd there are a lot of policy implications that go with that that we have not necessarily thought through and prepared for up until this point.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
INTELLIGENCE SHARING<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
One of the more prominent policy questions raised by the ongoing conflict involves the sharing of intelligence that has traditionally been classified or controlled by government agencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kari Bingen, Hawkeye 360\u2032s chief strategy officer and the former principal deputy under secretary of defense for intelligence, said during a recent event at the International Institute for Strategic Studies the U.S. government should take advantage of the burgeoning commercial market and build policies that normalize greater sharing of information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFrom a space and intelligence perspective, it\u2019s phenomenal to see the unprecedented sharing of intelligence right now,\u201d Bingen said. \u201cClearly, there\u2019s an urgency of the moment right now. I think the question going forward will be, will we sustain some of this going forward in our policies and institutionalize this kind of sharing?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The U.S. has put constraints on companies that prevent them from sharing imagery over certain regions or of a certain level of quality, said Brian Weeden, director of program planning at Secure World Foundation. Many of those restrictions have been lifted in recent years through measures like the Trump Administration\u2019s Space Policy Directive-2, but some still exist, Weeden noted, pointing to recent reporting from Breaking Defense about the government using contractual language to enforce licensing controls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some of the government\u2019s concerns about open-source intelligence revolve around controlling the narrative of a conflict, Harrison said. While the public release of imagery and other information has worked in the U.S. government\u2019s favor in this particular conflict, that may not be the case in future scenarios.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think that in the aftermath of this, we\u2019re going to have to take into account in our national security strategy that the world has become more transparent and we cannot necessarily control the narrative, nor can our adversaries,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are also fears that sharing too much information could interfere with military strategy or operational security in certain scenarios.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Col. Ben Ogden, a space operations officer at the U.S. Army War College, said the uncontrolled release of high-quality satellite imagery could take away the element of surprise in a future military operation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen you talk about operational security, there are going to be so many satellite imagery possibilities from commercial companies that national security efforts \u2013 whether it\u2019s troop movements that we would like to do in support of our interests \u2013 will not go under the shade of night or there will not be much of an operational surprise anymore,\u201d Ogden said during an event in early March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Commercial space capabilities reportedly played a role in the Iranian military\u2019s January 2020 attack on Ain al-Asad Air Base in Iraq. More than a year after the attack, which damaged equipment and injured more than 100 people, 60 Minutes reported that Iran had used commercial satellite images to monitor the installation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even with these concerns, Bingen noted there is clearly a demand, even within the military, for more releasable intelligence. And Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine is putting that demand signal on display and providing a use case for the role commercial space capabilities could play in the larger intelligence picture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe demand signal\u2019s there,\u201d she said. \u201cWe just now need the institution to respond with the disclosure policies, the processes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
RESPONDING TO AN ATTACK<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
Another policy issue elevated by Russia\u2019s war on Ukraine is how the U.S. would respond if Russia attacked a commercial space system providing intelligence in support of Ukrainian operations. Weeden said the question carries a particular weight given Russia\u2019s possession and past demonstration of both destructive and non-destructive counterspace weapons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is the first sort of modern conventional armed conflict between two opponents with pretty significant capabilities and at least one of them, on the Russian side, has a bunch of counterspace capabilities, so they can react to the use of space by the other side,\u201d Weeden said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Remote sensing companies have in recent weeks raised concerns that there isn\u2019t a clear process for reporting an attack or collaborating on a potential response. J.R. Riordan, chief revenue officer at BlackSky, said the company spends \u201cquite a bit of capital\u201d on protecting its systems, noting that \u201cthere is no 9-1-1 phone call for us to say, \u2018Help.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re trying to make stronger doors, better locks and better protection, so that we can do that for our customers as well as protect our assets,\u201d he said during the Satellite 2022 Conference in March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While there are precedents and international laws around targeting civilians and third parties in an armed conflict, the lines are blurrier when it comes to space. John Hill, acting assistant secretary of defense for space policy, said international law doesn\u2019t provide clear guidance on \u201cwhat is permissible\u201d in space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere is so much about what is responsible behavior in space that we\u2019re figuring out as we go,\u201d Hill said during the same conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He advocated for more deliberate engagement with operators across the space enterprise as a way to \u201ccreate the content\u201d and best practices around safe and responsible conduct in space, saying that work could eventually lead to international agreement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Weeden said there has been some momentum in recent years to develop norms around responsible behavior in space, highlighting an upcoming United Nations \u201copen-ended working group\u201d meeting focused on space threats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first session is slated for early May and Russia had been expected to be at the table, but a Department of State official confirmed during a National Security Space Association event in March that Russia will not participate. Weeden said he expects the current conflict to feature heavily at the meeting, especially given Russia\u2019s November anti-satellite test.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The war in Ukraine is certainly not the first major conflict where commercial space capabilities have been a feature, but experts say advances in technology have enabled these systems to play a much larger role than in the past.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":27527,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"single-post-featured-layout","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":23,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[160,33,163,36,23],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3468],"class_list":["post-22529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-home","category-military-space-report","category-newsletters","category-space"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"LMFR2AQQIBGSNLK7ODXE4T2JTA","arc_canonical_url":"\/intel-geoint\/2022\/04\/25\/how-commercial-space-systems-are-changing-the-conflict-in-ukraine\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"featured-layout","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n