Neil Shastri-Hurst: There is a very a good case for why Britain must still reach for the stars | Conservative Home

The critical importance of space from both a national security and an economic prosperity perspective has long been recognised. The Ministry of Defence’s Defence Space Strategy: Operationalising the Space Domain highlighted the ambition for the UK to become “a meaningful actor in space”.

However, despite such lofty aims, less than one per cent of defence spending is allocated to space. Given its strategic significance this needs to be rapidly addressed to ensure we are positioned to face the challenges of an increasingly uncertain world.

Militarily, there can be no doubt that space has become an increasingly essential domain for conducting operations. The UK Defence Space Strategy clearly sets out the benefits and strategic advantages of controlling space. Space enables command and control globally; it provides surveillance, intelligence, and missile warning, and supports deployed Joint Forces.

It follows therefore that in an era of increasing geopolitical instability, Britain can no longer afford to sub-contract out its space defence capabilities to its allies.

Pursuing such an approach would mean that we would continue to be prevented from using Storm Shadow assets in Ukraine without American space assistance. This would severely limit our operational flexibility and agility. Rather, we must ensure we develop our own wide-ranging sovereign capabilities.

This will, inevitably, mean individual expenditure within Britain’s defence budget will need to be cut accordingly. This only goes to re-enforce the need to increase British defence spending as a percentage of GDP. However, it also necessitates a mind shift that expenditure on space, over more traditional capabilities, does not undermine our ability to defend but increases it.

The national security case for investing in space is obvious. We rely upon a variety of space-based technologies for the purposes of communications, navigation, and intelligence collection. This includes next generation military SATCOM technology through the SKYNET 6 Programme which provides agile, global communications for military personnel, thereby enhancing our operational capabilities.

But such technologies are prone to malign and benign threats: from cyberattacks and jamming through to mechanical and electrical failure. In order to ensure the resilience of our critical national infrastructure, increased investment is vital.

We then turn to the issue of Space Domain Awareness (SDA), which is critically important for safety, security, and sustainability in space activities. By improving SDA, through enhanced capabilities, we will be able to study, monitor, and track objects and safeguard assets from threats. And, of course, threats can come in all shapes and sizes, from debris colliding with satellites to deliberate attacks by hostile states.

But investing in space is also about investing in our allies and deterring our adversaries, and demonstrating that Britain is a global leader and solidifies our role within the NATO alliance. It shows our commitment to global collaboration and partnerships driven by a desire to strengthen our combined security efforts and promotes our ambitions and values as a nation state seeking to lead on scientific and technological discovery.

It also ensures that the UK is leading in shaping the future of space governance and mapping out the international laws of space. And, critically, it ensures that we are a strong international partner in delivering strategic stability to space; reducing the risk of conflicts involving space assets igniting and escalating, and that hostile nations such as Russia and China, with established space capabilities, are kept in check.

With the Strategic Defence Review due to report in the first half of this year, it is time to reset our approach to space. It is time that we match our stated ambitions with our actions. It is time that we make the bold choice to invest in our defence space capabilities.