As Russia held its Victory Day parade this year, hackers backing the Kremlin hijacked an orbiting satellite that provides television service to Ukraine.
Instead of normal programing, Ukrainian viewers saw parade footage beamed in from Moscow: waves of tanks, soldiers and weaponry. The message was meant to intimidate and was an illustration that 21st-century war is waged not just on land, sea and air but also in cyberspace and the reaches of outer space.
"If you can impede a satellite's ability to communicate, you can cause a significant disruption," said Tom Pace, CEO of NetRise, a cybersecurity firm focused on protecting supply chains.
"Think about GPS," said the former Marine who now works on cyber issues at the Department of Energy. "Imagine if a population lost that and the confusion it would cause."
The X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle-7, the U.S. Space Force's dynamic unmanned spaceplane, successfully landed March 7 at Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif.
Satellites vulnerable
More than 12,000 operating satellites orbit Earth, playing a critical role not just in broadcast communications but also in military operations, navigation systems like GPS, intelligence gathering and economic supply chains. They also are key to early launch-detection efforts that can warn of approaching missiles.
That makes them a significant national security vulnerability, and a prime target for anyone looking to undermine an adversary's economy or military readiness — or deliver a psychological blow like the hackers supporting Russia did.
As Russian forces invaded Ukraine in 2022, someone targeted Viasat, the U.S.-based satellite company used by Ukraine's government and military. The hack, which Kyiv blamed on Moscow, used malware to infect tens of thousands of modems, creating an outage affecting wide swaths of Europe.
National security officials say Russia is developing a nuclear, space-based weapon designed to take out virtually every satellite in low-Earth orbit at once. The weapon would combine a physical attack that would ripple outward, destroying more satellites, while the nuclear component would fry their electronics.
U.S. officials declassified information about the weapon after Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, issued a public warning. He pushed for the Department of Defense to provide a classified briefing to lawmakers on the weapon, which if deployed would violate an international treaty prohibiting weapons of mass destruction in space.
Turner said such a weapon could render low-Earth orbit unusable for satellites for as long as a year. That would be devastating, potentially leaving the U.S. and its allies vulnerable to economic upheaval and even a nuclear attack.
Russia and China also would lose satellites, though they are believed to be less reliant on the same kinds of satellites as the U.S.
"If this anti-satellite nuclear weapon would be put in space, it would be the end of the space age," Turner said. "It should never be permitted to go into outer space."
China's Long March 2F rocket, carrying three astronauts for the Shenzhou 20 manned space mission, blasts off April 24 at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center.
Moon and beyond
Valuable minerals and other materials found on the moon and in asteroids could lead to future conflicts as nations look to exploit new technologies and energy sources.
Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy announced plans this month to send a small nuclear reactor to the moon, saying it's important the U.S. does so before China or Russia.
"We're in a race to the moon, in a race with China to the moon," he said. "To have a base on the moon, we need energy and some of the key locations on the moon. … We want to get there first and claim that for America."
The moon is rich in helium 3, a material scientists believe could be used in nuclear fusion to generate huge amounts of energy.
While that technology is decades away, control over the moon could determine which countries emerge as superpowers, according to Joseph Rooke, a London-based cybersecurity expert.
The end of the Cold War temporarily halted a lot of investments in space, but competition is likely to increase as the promise of mining the moon becomes a reality.
China and Russia announced plans for their own nuclear plants on the moon in coming years, while the U.S. plans missions to the moon and Mars. Artificial intelligence is likely to speed up the competition, as is the demand for the energy that AI requires.
Messages left with Russia's Embassy in Washington were not returned.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with a satellite payload lifts off Dec. 5 from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla.
Space forces
Nations are scrambling to create their own rocket and space programs to exploit commercial prospects and ensure they aren't dependent on foreign satellites. It's an expensive and difficult proposition, as demonstrated in recent days when the first Australian-made rocket crashed after 14 seconds of flight.
The U.S. Space Force, created in 2019 to protect American interests in space and to defend U.S. satellites from attacks, is growing.
The U.S. military also operates an unmanned space shuttle used to conduct classified military missions and research. The craft, known as the X-37B, recently returned to Earth after more than a year in orbit.
