Please do not go by the title of this essay. Non-physicists can read it, too, because it is written by one. Last week, I was at an event known as the DEFSAT Conference. It came in the backdrop of another event known as the Defence Space Conclave. Two different space industry bodies, SIA-India and ISpA, organised these events. The best aspect of the theme of these two gatherings was that no one was discussing the elusive peace, but everyone was discussing wars and conflicts. As often said, it is better to prepare for war to ensure stability; some deliberations revolved around offence in space. I paid rapt attention to all that was told by military planners – both tacticians and strategists, by space industry captains, bright entrepreneurs and wise academicians and lawyers. Anti-satellite weapons were one of the recurring topics, and so were the US and its allies’ self-imposed, voluntary and self-adulatory prohibition on using direct-ascent ASAT weapons. However, like every military-involving conference in the world, the proceedings of these events also mainly were superficial, with blurry messaging.
DA-ASAT is likely to create tremendous space debris due to the high-velocity interception of the projectile with the target. With a growing number of satellites from various countries operating in the low- and medium-Earth orbit, killing any satellite with a dead giveaway will make the ASAT launching country a geopolitical pariah globally. The making, storage and use of DA-ASAT is a costly affair, especially for knocking off a miniaturised satellite made for a few thousand dollars and one that is easily replaceable. But then, this voluntary inhibition is no omen of peace in orbits.
Satellites are vital to command, control, computers, communications, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR). Commercial players have already integrated the C4ISR for civilian and military end users. This integration has resulted in very peculiar ‘satcom-as-a-service’ or ‘ISR-as-a-service’. We see brief glimpses of such capable services, often in conflict regions or those suffering after a disaster. But then, what if such a C4ISR system is attacked? Has it become a critical infrastructure that cannot remain offline? Will its remaining offline create cascading economic and security damages? Furthermore, how can we determine whether a satellite or a spacecraft has inherently malfunctioned or been attacked?
We now have two astropolitical blocs: the US-led Artemis Accords and the Sino-Russia-led International Lunar Research Station Organisation trying to set up a cislunar – Earth-Moon transportation and communication architecture. Both are aiming for a large number of member countries to join their respective cliques. There are countries in the dilemma of which clique to choose; some are clear-headed about an independent stance, while some are still inconsequential to select or get onboarded at the master’s call.
Now, pointing out a counterstrike in a two-player system is easy. But then the growing number of clique members in it and those choosing to stay outside them use non-kinetic ASAT, a complex multiplayer game. Say A wants to attack B but is certainly not in a mood today, but B still gets attacked. Whodunit? Say A and B have signed an ASAT peace treaty, but one of the two is attacked immediately. Whodunit? Say B wants to attack A but wants to avoid getting attributed. What does B do? It chooses a pawn and initiates the desired attack. Whodunit? Let us assume the pawn is not a junior partner of B but a lesser-known non-state actor or a terror group. Then again, whodunit?
Well, as the world celebrates every space launch, every satellite beaming images and making space-based telecom possible, what is increasingly becoming worrisome is the disregard for the possibilities that spacecraft and satellites can likely be subjected to offensive cyber capabilities, especially capabilities that can proliferate across borders. Satellite constellations and their ground stations are third-generation networked SCADA systems. Being networked, their vulnerabilities increase manifold. And with the cross-border proliferation of offensive cyber capabilities, attribution to a specific attacker will get increasingly complex in the coming years, especially if the attacker is a lone wolf.
Where kinetic-kill ASAT was being developed, all this while as a last-strike weapon. Cyber ASAT is a first-strike weapon with no radars or other early-warning or interception systems. Additionally, attacked entities may replace the compromised satellite hardware from the SCADA system; however, the fate of especially old satellites, which are even more vulnerable to cyberattacks, hangs under Damocles’s Sword of poor cyber attribution. Who then in the world would serve justice? Has the Outer Space Treaty made any provisions for preventing such attacks? Can the proposed Prevention of an Arms Race in Space (PAROS) help with cyber attribution? Can the Wassenaar Arrangement on Export Controls for Conventional Arms and Dual-Use Goods and Technologies curtail the proliferation of cyber weapons? Can there be an International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Cyber Terrorism under the UN Office of Counter Terrorism?
Whether a satellite has broken down due to instrumental flaws and errors or has been taken down by a cyber attack could become complicated if attribution fails. And attribution will remain difficult when malicious players conduct cyber attacks from unanticipated locations. Well, numerous consulting firms across the world are painting rosy pictures of a space economy. If you take it from them hook, line and sinker, there are no obstructions to the economy that they forecast to grow six-fold from ~USD 500 billion to ~USD 3 trillion. They will not tell you that commercial satellite constellations are juicy targets for cyberattacks and even more when no international legal instrument, at present, can prosecute them.
Furthermore, what if A and B are at loggerheads with each other and keep up with the false attribution, whereas one of their junior partners of one’s own free will elicits the attack? The point is that rancid geopolitical bipolarity, currently experienced in global geopolitics, can sometimes make attribution biased, false, and motivated to raise the escalation ladder of conflict. If attacked through unattributable non-state actors, the international laws – Principle of Sovereignty, Principle of Non-Intervention, and Prohibition of the Use of Force – will prove ineffective in delivering justice as most international laws are to limit actions taken by state actors.
The world is entering a grey zone where fallacies in the current international rules could be exploited. Cyber-ASAT, a first-strike weapon, could be used during cold and hot conflicts. Its usage and attributions would bring into action intelligence agencies more frequently than military forces. Whether nations are seriously developing national modalities to preempt and counter such attacks will result in whether they have contemplated international legal mechanisms, with both partners and countries that are not precisely partners to each other. A global consensus is critical as cyber-ASAT will challenge numerous international treaties that have maintained order for the last 5-6 decades but are rapidly becoming obsolete. Unfortunately, the ongoing geopolitical acrimony would not help build the consensus for setting 21st-century relevant international legal regimens. Until then, we are looking at Schrödinger’s Spacecraft. Indian space ecosystem must get over the rosy picture that is being painted. Only by getting real will they find the secure market they are seeking. There is no place for vulnerable space systems. The ecosystem must get real and harden.
