A strategic thrust to space beyond borders

As space activities grow beyond the traditional state-led programmes, policy is beginning to catch up. On October 17, the US government eased space-related export controls to expand its commercial sector's reach. However, trade liberalisation in the space sector should evolve beyond allowing hardware sales. International cooperation between the US and its allies can distribute the space technology supply chains beyond national borders across trusted geographies. When spread globally, technology development will reduce costs, enable specialisation, facilitate innovation, increase production rates, and promote geopolitical stability on Earth and beyond.

In the initial decades of the Cold War, national space programmes were centralised and government-led. The states retained monopolistic control over the space domain for military purposes. In the post-Cold War era, space technology was reimagined for civilian use. Spacefaring nations liberalised their space sectors to encourage scale and innovation. The doors were thrown open to private companies. Today, State-led space programmes coexist with flourishing commercial space ecosystems.

While this allows nations to harness civilian might, it also forces States to consider private priorities. The latest move by the US is a combination of both. This trend should grow beyond exports and include allowing production activities to other allied geographies.

The liberalisation hasn’t happened yet because of the nature of space technology. Most of it has powerful military use cases. To illustrate, rockets that serve as launch vehicles to space are very similar to intercontinental ballistic missiles. Missile technology exports are controlled under regimes like the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR). To overcome these security concerns while carrying out space launches outside its borders, the US has Technology Safeguard Agreements with some of its most trusted allies from the MTCR, including New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Australia. These nations share a history of strategic partnership with the US. On similar lines, such agreements between the US and its Asian allies, like South Korea, India and Japan, hold immense potential for cooperation in space.

These Asian nations possess significant existing capabilities in space, making their cooperation a positive-sum game. They already work together on various strategic space missions. For instance, the US and South Korea are working to ensure compatibility between their satellite navigation systems. South Korea has a similar agreement with Japan. India, Japan, and the US collaborate on many key missions ranging from lunar exploration to human spaceflight.

There is a latent political will to deepen technological cooperation among these countries. The US and India have established the Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET), a collaborative framework in key technology areas, with space cooperation as a major pillar. The two countries also created the India-US Defence Acceleration Ecosystem (INDUS-X) to deepen commercial ties and co-develop military technologies, including space technology.

The Trilateral Technology Dialogue involving the US, India and South Korea is committed to strengthening technology supply chains, with space technology identified as a focus area. In a trilateral summit at Camp David last year, the US, Japan and South Korea reaffirmed their cooperation in the technology sphere. Growing recognition of this collaborative opportunity will build the political momentum needed to achieve meaningful reform in the international space sector.

A positive-sum game

The challenges that humanity has to overcome in its quest to venture deeper into space are numerous and significant. As these nations plan to independently achieve the objectives related to distant missions like interplanetary exploration and in-situ resource utilisation, the timelines remain long and are subject to delays. Even after realisation, the technologies may end up being fragmented and may not be interoperable. The commercial space sector may lose its cost advantages due to concentrated supply chains within national boundaries.

Further liberalisation of the space sector paves the way for cooperative approach between allied geographies, while continuing to restrict access to adversarial nations. The pooling of talent, infrastructure and other resources allows countries to play to their natural advantages. For instance, the US will get access to low-cost production and favourable launch locations in India while India will gain access to some US capabilities.

Even though the US enjoys greater levels of technical prowess in space relative to the Asian allies, the diffusion of knowledge resulting from cooperation will lead to strengthened supply chains that will serve US interests as much as those of the other stakeholders.

The technological design born out of partnerships will bring interchangeability and flexibility resulting from the common standards. There will be minimal duplication of effort. Common infrastructural investments like fuelling stations in orbit, landing pads and surveillance satellites around the moon and Mars will reduce costs. It will also minimise conflicts around territories and resources in outer space. The resulting benefits will further commercial sector interests and broader space technology milestones. The aligned interests and common goals will make it easier to reach consensus on contentious governance challenges that will become rampant in the space domain.

Even commercial space technologies deployed for civilian applications have the potential for military uses as Starlink has demonstrated during the Russia-Ukraine war. Existing space powers have every reason to build moats and retain expertise and capability within their borders. In trying to deny their adversarial counterparts technology access, they end up retaining the production activities within their borders. As a result, they also miss out on potential cooperation with other spacefaring allies that share the same goals and values.

There is room for a finer balance than the one that exists with space technology. Like New Zealand, Australia, the UK and Canada, India, South Korea and Japan are also members of the MTCR. This presents an opportunity. These nations can tap into one another’s talent, infrastructure, and other capabilities to simultaneously reduce development cycles and expand operational capacity across space initiatives. Space technology supply chains are not global. They should be.

(The writer is a research analyst with the Takshashila Institution)