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Pablo

@arriazu.bsky.social

140 followers 650 following 130 posts

Spacecraft Mechanic 🛰 | Trying to put space in context 🌐📡 | I study Space Security 🕊

I used to be here: https://x.com/PabloArriazu

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Pablo

@arriazu.bsky.social

The European Space Shield in the Readiness Map 2030:
defence-industry-space.ec.europa.eu/eu-defence-i...

European Space Shield
The European Space Shield is key to enhance Member States’ defence capabilities and
ensure the protection and resilience of space assets and services against growing threats
and to achieve defence readiness 2030 building on national and commercial space assets,
with the support of the EU space systems. It will complement the EU dual use Space
capabilities that will provide governmental services for the benefit of all Member States
in: Positioning, Navigation and Timing with the Galileo Public Regulated Service,
geospatial intelligence with the Earth Observation Governmental Service and secure
communications with IRIS2 in incentivising Member States to develop together sovereign
capabilities. It will foster the development of interoperable national defence capabilities,
focusing notably on Galileo enabled equipment, Space Domain Awareness, countering
jamming and spoofing, and in-space operations and services, where Europe has clear
shortfalls and dependencies.
Objective:
It is proposed to set up and protect a comprehensive European system of space capabilities
that serve defence purposes, building on the EU space systems and existing national
capacities.
Milestones:
1. EUCO to endorse the European Space Shield as a priority flagship – by end 2025.
2. Prioritise related actions in Space, IRIS², EDF and EDIP work programmes in a
coordinated approach and work with Member States to support coordination of their
procurement plans (SAFE) – as of 2026
3. Launch the European Space Shield – Q2 2026

October 16, 2025 at 12:18 PM

Pablo

@arriazu.bsky.social

UK Space Commander's speech at @rusi.bsky.social
www.gov.uk/government/s...

Screenshot with text: Access is no longer enough. We must be able to control space, defend our assets, and — if required — deny its use to hostile actors.

Passive resilience is insufficient. We require persistent domain awareness and credible counterspace capabilities if we are to deter, endure a first strike, and, if necessary, fight through and win.

No one wants a war in space, and it is certainly not inevitable.

But we must be clear eyed about these challenges to our vital national interests.

Screenshot with text: We are not going to do this alone. Space is the ultimate team sport. So, being clear on what needs to be nationally separable capabilities - to assure effects and provide us strategic autonomy - and what we can collaborate on with allies, and access through commercial, is seminal to our force design.

We recognise that to keep pace with the threats and technology we need to move much faster and exploit commercial industry.

To achieve the right hybrid architecture, the Strategic Defence Review also recommends that the National Armaments Director prioritises a Space Portfolio to help us:

Innovate at scale;
Better embrace commercial practices;
Learn from models like Taskforce Kindred;
Pick winners – spreading bets is for those that haven’t done the work to prioritise.
And focus on volume and velocity, not process.

August 7, 2025 at 12:23 PM

Pablo

@arriazu.bsky.social

In any case, this may just be the start of a commercialization wave of NASA (and NOAA) assets and functions

NASA's recent call for universities and companies to potentially take over the cost of maintaining the OCO instrument attached to the International Space Station suggests the agency is also considering privatizing NASA science missions. Such partnerships raise a host of thorny questions, says Michalak, who has worked with private companies, nonprofit groups, universities and the federal government on greenhouse gas monitoring satellite projects.

"On the one hand the private sector is really starting to have a role," Michalak says. In recent years, multiple private groups in the U.S. have launched satellites that measure methane, a potent planet-warming gas that is poorly monitored compared to carbon dioxide.

August 6, 2025 at 8:32 AM

Pablo

@arriazu.bsky.social

Is Directed Energy - both lasers and HPM- going to be a central part of the European counterspace tech debate?

June 15, 2025 at 11:22 AM

Pablo

@arriazu.bsky.social

Kubilius (EU commissioner on defence and space) has addressed the ESA council with a speech very centred in defence and the need to build sovereign strategic capabilities ec.europa.eu/commission/p...

Screenshot: We are looking how to bring readiness not only into “space for defence”, but also into “defence of space”, into defence of our space assets, which are facing more and more threats directly in the satellite environment.

Defence readiness in space demands that we:

regain our autonomous space transportation capabilities,
to be able to permanently service our satellite systems directly in orbit,
and also to be able to react and to defend our satellite systems from any physical threats in space.
This in turn means that we need to:

strengthen our space situational awareness building on more than ten years of European cooperation towards EU Space Surveillance and Tracking services.
work towards radio frequence interference monitoring

June 11, 2025 at 6:42 PM

Pablo

@arriazu.bsky.social

Space in the German coalition agreement:
📡A new space security strategy will be published!
🇩🇪 National programme to be expanded
🇪🇺 ESA budget to increase and push for own (Euro) capabilities.
🚀Launch from Northern sea.
👩‍🚀Support to human spaceflight
💸State as customer

screenshot of the agreement in German: Raumfahrt ist eine Zukunfts- und Schlüsseltechnologie und auch für unsere Sicherheit und unsere militärischen Fähigkeiten zentral. Deshalb werden wir die Europäische Weltraumorganisation (ESA) stärken und den deutschen Beitrag zur ESA-Ministerratskonferenz, die Ende 2025 in Bremen stattfindet, erhöhen. Auch unser nationales Raumfahrtprogramm werden wir ausbauen. Astronautische Weltraummissionen inspirieren die nächste Generation zu Höchstleistungen. Wir streben an, dass eine deutsche Astronautin oder ein deutscher Astronaut im Rahmen einer internationalen Mission zum Mond fliegt. An einer ISS-Nachfolgelösung werden wir uns beteiligen. Wir unterstützen den Trägerraketensektor und Initiativen wie eine Startplattform in der Nordsee und das ESA-Mondkontrollzentrum. Unverzichtbar sind auch eigene Fähigkeiten zur Erdbeobachtung und Kommunikation (zum Beispiel Galileo und IRIS2). Wir wollen, dass kleine und mittlere Unternehmen sowie Start-ups besser am Markt für Raumfahrtlösungen teilnehmen können und streben an, dass der Staat stärker als Kunde auftritt.

screenshot with text in German: Wir setzen uns dafür ein, dass Hemmnisse, die beispielsweise Dual-Use-Forschung oder auch zivil-militärische Forschungskooperationen erschweren, abgebaut werden. Außerdem wollen wir die Verteidigungsfähigkeit Deutschlands im Weltraum entschlossen und zügig ausbauen. Eine nationale Weltraumsicherheitsstrategie werden wir im ersten Regierungsjahr veröffentlichen. Wir werden das Defizit, das es in Deutschland im Bereich der strategischen Sicherheitsforschung gibt, beseitigen und uns für deren Förderung im Sinne eines vernetzten Sicherheitsverständnisses einsetzen

April 9, 2025 at 4:51 PM

Pablo

@arriazu.bsky.social

But we will always have the Space Force Doctrine Document 1 stating counterspace operations will be responsible.

Screeshot of SFDD1: Competitive Endurance is the Space Force’s approach to achieving space superiority, when necessary, in crisis or conflict, while maintaining the safety, security, stability, and long-term sustainability of space. Establishing the capabilities, culture, and commitment of combat-credible forces is essential for success against a peer adversary. This approach has three core tenets: Avoid Operational Surprise. Space forces must be able to detect and preempt any perturbations in the operational environment that could compromise the ability of the joint force to achieve space superiority. This requires the full breadth of space domain awareness data including intelligence, environmental monitoring, and cooperative reporting to support timely and actionable decision making. Deny First-Mover Advantage. Space forces must have the capability and resiliency to deter or overcome an adversary’s first strike in space, making it impractical and selfdefeating. Conduct Responsible Counterspace Operations. Space forces must be able to conduct a sequence of military activities that enable protection of the Nation and the joint force from space-enabled attack without generating long-lived hazardous debris.

April 9, 2025 at 8:43 AM

Pablo

@arriazu.bsky.social

The report also considers boost-phase missile intercept systems, which would attempt to intercept ICBMs during their first few minutes of flight, while their rocket motors are firing. It first describes and evaluates boost-phase intercept systems that would use rocket interceptors based on land, ships, or aircraft, and the drone-based rocket-interceptor system that has been proposed. It finds that all these systems would face very difficult technical challenges. After careful analysis, the report concludes that systems of this type would be unable to defend the entire continental United States. At best, a particular system could theoretically defend part of the U.S. against some of the ICBMs North Korea has.

The report then considers boost-phase missile intercept systems based in space, estimating that over a thousand orbiting weapons would be needed to counter a single North Korean solid-propellant ICBM and that ten times more would be needed to defend against ten launched within a short time. The system would be costly and vulnerable to anti-satellite attacks.

View of Earth showing the constellation of 1,600
space-based interceptors that would berequired to ensure
that one is available to intercept a rapid salvo launch of four
Hwasong-15 ICBMs from North Korea, if the system was
designed to fire interceptors almost automatically, i.e., if no
time is allowed to decide whether to fire them. If instead the
system was designed to allow 30 seconds to decide whether to
fire interceptors, about 2,200 interceptors would be needed to
ensure that enough are available to intercept such a salvo. See
text for details. Adapted from [NRC 2012, Fig. 2-20].

March 26, 2025 at 2:47 PM

Pablo

@arriazu.bsky.social

Specially interesting that this decline of presence in the manifestos comes now that the activity in the Bundestag is on the rise.

Mention of space in maniferstos, comparison of 2019 to 2025 election. Greens remain more or less the same, halving of the CDU/CSU mentions, dissapearing the tiny presence in SDP and die Linke, almost disappearing in FDP program, and small new presence in BSW.

Image shows the activity in Bundestag since 2000, showing a decrease over 2002-2014, but a clear growing trend

February 22, 2025 at 12:54 PM

Pablo

@arriazu.bsky.social

"The question arises as to who protects the EU itself in the face of apathy or inaction of its members in situations that require a coordinated response to external threats." A very timely sentence found in a great recent paper on EU space security

www.seguridadinternacional.es/resi/index.p...

February 14, 2025 at 3:03 PM

Pablo

@arriazu.bsky.social

This research paper from the EU Council’s Analysis & Research Team is a clear and insightful read and a reminder that potential conflict in outer space is no longer just a niche debate among us, space-policy nerds.
www.consilium.europa.eu/media/525jyi...

Screenshot of the cover, written Space: the new battleground of modern warfare

Diagrams of different types of threats to space systems, including using direct energy, jamming, spoofing and cyberattacks

February 13, 2025 at 1:45 PM

Pablo

@arriazu.bsky.social

On the meantime during UNOOSA's Scientific and Technical Subcommittee: a proposal to create an expert group on Space Situational Awareness (room paper by UAE) www.unoosa.org/oosa/en/oosa...

screenshot with text: (a) Promote and foster greater awareness and cooperation on exchange of relevant information on space objects and events (“space traffic data”) and
information sharing among Member States;
(b) Review existing and/or propose new measures, and best practices to achieve consistency in understanding and use of Space Situational Awareness (SSA)
information-sharing practices to aid operational coordination;
(c) Develop recommendations for global STC principles and frameworks, including the use of international standards and formats for representing information to enable the interoperability of information shared on a voluntary basis;
(d) Identify areas for future work

February 4, 2025 at 9:32 PM

Pablo

@arriazu.bsky.social

Thierry Breton speaks (in an interview in Spanish, translation in ALT) about the need to defend European interests in space, by "offensive" means if necessary. And declines to speak about a potential Italian deal with Starlink. agendapublica.es/noticia/1957...

Screenshot of interview with the folloing text but in Spanish: We worked closely with my former colleague and friend, Josep Borrell, who was the high representative. I was Commissioner for Defence Industry, and he had a dual responsibility, both in foreign policy and in defence. We worked well together, and under his leadership, with the support of my team, we worked with the 27 defence ministers on what we called the Strategic Compass, which was the first time we had a unified defence framework. It took many months, even years, to complete, but it was an important step forward.

As part of this work, we identified four contested areas where Europe needs to work together to defend itself and, if necessary, take offensive action. No single country can meet these challenges alone. These areas include cyber security, space, air defence and maritime defence.
In space, no single country can protect Europe's position in space. In air defence, we have to work together to create a protective bubble for our airspace. Similarly, we have the largest exclusive maritime zone in the world, but no single country can defend it alone. These are contested areas, and we need joint projects and infrastructure to ensure that we can defend them effectively.

We have already made progress, for example with the Galileo satellite constellation. It serves both governmental and civilian purposes, and we have established a governance model that allows Member States to work together comfortably. This system ensures that we work together for the benefit of Europe's sovereignty, autonomy and protection.

We now need to extend this model to the other contested areas. We have made substantial progress on cybersecurity, including the Cybersecurity Strategy, and we have ongoing projects in air defence. In space, we are working on the IRIS2 project, which aims to establish a secure infrastructure for government and defence applications, as well as for civil connectivity across Europe and beyond.

What does it mean to you that Meloni could agree with Elon Musk to use Starlink for Italy?

It is important to note that IRIS2 offers much more than any other constellation today. We provide more advanced technology than any competing system, which is a key differentiator. However, I do not want to comment on the strategy of a particular country. What I do know is that all Member States supported the IRIS2 project, including the European Parliament, and that support came from countries such as Italy, Spain, France and Germany. They voted for it, so they are aware of its potential and have shown their support.

Of course, if in the meantime a country identifies a specific need and chooses to take independent action, it is not for me to comment on that. But what I can say is that all Member States voted in favour of IRIS2, and this constellation is crucial for our autonomy.

January 19, 2025 at 12:23 PM

Pablo

@arriazu.bsky.social

Oh! Is filing for patents for underwater sea cable cutting an entrrpreneural initiative looking for customers or a power signalling strategy?

www.newsweek.com/china-confli...