This week, the UK government published its long-awaited Strategic Defence Review (SDR), outlining plans to raise defence spending and reaffirming a focus on the Euro-Atlantic region. The document presents an integrated, multi-domain approach to future threats and places space firmly within that framework, recognizing it as ‘central to warfighting’. That recognition must now be backed by urgent investment if the UK is to turn intent into capability.
The SDR sets an ambitious vision for ‘an Integrated Force that deters, fights and wins through constant innovation at wartime pace’ and acknowledges the need for a space capability that secures UK national interests. However, it fails to recognize the urgency of the threat landscape in space and the long timelines required to develop critical capabilities. Without a clear plan, defined funding trajectory and near-term investment, the UK risks falling behind both allies and adversaries, and missing the opportunity to realize its ambitions.
The threat environment in outer space is evolving rapidly. As the UK’s reliance on space-based systems grows, spanning everything from military operations to essential civilian infrastructure, so too does its vulnerability. Adversaries are advancing a range of counterspace capabilities, including physical and cyberattacks, designed to disrupt critical space-based assets. At the same time, the risk of accidental collisions and the proliferation of space debris are making the domain increasingly congested and contested.
Space is also critical to the UK’s national resilience. According to the UK Space Agency, nearly 20 per cent of GDP depends on satellite-enabled services, including financial transactions, navigation and emergency response. Space also provides the backbone for modern military operations, enabling situational awareness, precision targeting, secure communications, and global command and control. The SDR rightly identifies the need for further investment into capabilities to control space, provide decision advantage and space-based ISR (the systems that allow military forces to detect, track and understand threats in real time). The Ministry of Defence currently only has one military ISR satellite, and more are urgently needed to ensure UK forces can operate effectively across domains.
Delivering sovereign capabilities such as secure communications, space-based ISR and space domain awareness will not happen overnight; it requires long-term planning, complex engineering and stable industrial partnerships. Without urgent investment, the UK risks becoming entirely reliant on allies (principally the United States) and unassured commercial space-based assets to support core defence functions, leaving critical gaps in an increasingly contested environment. While the UK’s reliance on satellite services and the fragility of its domestic space industry continues to grow, China and Russia are accelerating the development of counterspace systems.
Despite the SDR’s recognition of space as vital to both national security and civilian life, space has received little attention in the government’s initial spending priorities. Defence investment continues to be concentrated in the maritime, land and air domains, with growing focus on cyber, artificial intelligence and drones. Space seems to lag behind in both resourcing and political focus, raising concerns about whether the investment needed to realize the UK’s space ambitions will materialize in time. Space was notably absent from the Chancellor’s Spring Statement, where she outlined UK defence spending priorities.
Further detail on spending allocations is expected later this summer. But if space is to be treated, as the SDR tells us, as critical to an Integrated Force’s ability to understand, move, communicate and fight, then it must be prioritized for early and big investment. The UK’s ability to deliver its space ambitions will depend on timely coordination between government, defence and industry. Delay now will make future delivery slower, costlier and less credible.
The cost of inaction is rising fast. China and Russia have actively weaponized space, having developed and demonstrated both cyber and physical counterspace capabilities, including jamming, spoofing and direct-ascent anti-satellite weapons. Russia, for example, has been accused of causing disruption to satellite navigation systems through cyberattacks, and the US has also accused Russia of developing an allegedly nuclear-capable anti-satellite weapon in 2024. China has also been growing its military space and counterspace capabilities ‘at breathtaking pace’.
Furthermore, the US – traditionally a key provider of allied space capability – is increasingly focused on the Indo-Pacific while stepping back from certain roles in Europe. In early March this year, the US briefly suspended intelligence sharing with Ukraine – a reminder that access to allied space services is not guaranteed. For the UK, this shifting strategic landscape underscores the urgent need to build resilient space capabilities.
Space is also a key opportunity for the UK to play a leading role in NATO, an area of renewed emphasis in the SDR. With the aim of being at the ‘leading edge of innovation in NATO,’ space is a clear opportunity to deliver. Investing in sovereign capabilities would not only enhance the UK’s operational autonomy but also position it to lead on the development of allied space policy and capability. Without timely investment, the UK risks being a consumer, rather than a shaper, of the future NATO space architecture.