Science

Space war: British force 'necessary' to protect UK assets in 'warfighting domain'


Meanwhile Will Whitehorn, the incoming president of trade organisation UK Space has said in his opinion, a Space Force along the lines of that floated by US President Donald Trump in the US was necessarily to safeguard UK assets.  Speaking at the UK Space Conference being held this week at the International Conference Centre Wales in Newport, Ms Trevelyan, Minister for Defence and Procurement, said all areas of British society were increasingly reliant of satellite, not least the military.

Ms Trevelyan made reference to to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty negotiated by the US and the USSR, which declared space to be “the province of all mankind”.

She added: “Noble sentiments with which I am sure everyone in this room agrees.

“But we have to recognise that the world has moved on since then.

“Rogue states and all those who challenge the international order, and non-state actors are increasingly gaining access to the sort of high-tech equipment which was once the monopoly of NATO and the Warsaw Pact countries.

“Cyberattackers are using cheap hardware to try to scramble satellites and put observation data to their advantage.”

Ms Trevelyan said competition in space was “fierce”, and urged “strategic thinking” when it came to protecting the UK’s “orbiting systems”.

READ MORE: EU wants to build ARMY in SPACE to take on US and China

She added: “That’s why we and our close allies have determined it to be a warfighting domain.”

The UK “must be willing and able to defend its assets within the boundaries of international law,” Ms Trevelyan said.

She said: “Since 2015, space has been a key operational domain joining air, land, sea and cyber, to join the five domains which inform all of the UK’s joint force defence policy.

“We are working to fully understand the risks, from accidents and natual hazards to a deliberate attack by organised groups.”

Meanwhile Mr Whitehorn, also speaking at the conference, said: “We should see creation of Space Force in the UK.

“My view is that as we go forward, there clearly has to be complete and utter coordination of way that govenment at all levels responds to the industrualisation of space.

“We are at stage where a lot of tech has been developed which can do a lot of the things that we will need, and they will be up there in the hostile environment of space.

“If we we do that then we have to be able to defend oursevles in space against sate and non-state actors.

“Clearly a time is coming where having coordinated approach is going to be important.

“There are a lot of ways you can protect uk satellites in space without being an aggressor.”



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