Representatives from 3 Canadian Space Division (3CSD) and NORAD (the North American Aerospace Defence Command) spoke at the Standing Committee on National Defence meeting on Space Defence on April 29, about a number of concerns in the military sphere. One of 3CSD’s aims is to, like U.S. Space Force, provide a coordinated effort for space threats since its establishment nearly two years ago, on July 22, 2022.
Though Russia and China are increasing worries for space security south of the border, two representatives from the Canadian military recently emphasized that unity with its allies in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and others will be a good deterrent – and that better tools are rapidly coming to deal with military threats.
For example, there is better monitoring and awareness: “The ability to understand that kind of activity on orbit speaks to the criticality of space domain awareness and how important it is that we, either through our own contributions or by being plugged into wider allied efforts, be able to understand who’s doing what on orbit,” Brig. Gen. Michael Adamson of 3CSD told the committee, during a question about what was to happen if a foreign satellite or nuclear weapon was aggressively approaching a Canadian satellite.
New tools are rapidly coming online to assess and deal with threats from China and Russia. When asked how China might disable satellites through a “cyber-weapon,” Adamson said Joint Force Cyber Component Command would have more information, but noted that the military is paying close attention to the communications link between satellites and ground infrastructure to see any points of failure.
Happily, 3CSD said Canadian industry seems to be prepared to work together as needed to address the “pacing threat” China presents; indeed, the military was about to hold discussions with company representatives at the first Canada-U.S. NORAD Modernization Summit held in Ottawa on May 1, two days after the committee meeting.
“When we look at the adversarial challenges that are out there, we often refer to China as the pacing threat, and trying to keep pace with that can be a challenge. The organizations that are probably best positioned to move innovation and technological development quickly are going to be our industry partners,” Adamson said. “I think we need to consult with industry to understand what new technology they may be working on and where we might be able to utilize that for best effect. Certainly, it has to be a collaborative and consultative engagement that we have with industry as we go forward.”
The collaboration is critical as launches worldwide are increasing with the availability of rockets and the reduction in size and mass of satellites, allowing dozens to be easily launched at a time. “It’s gone from maybe 100 per year to hundreds of launches per year,” Adamson said. “Each one of those launches is potentially putting 50 or 60 satellites at a time in orbit. That increased pace of launch has both an upside and a downside … there’s a lot of opportunity there for commercial and industry partners to take advantage of that. Conversely, though, if it’s some of our adversaries, we don’t know what they’re launching, necessarily.”
And to be sure, threats are also possible within Earth’s atmosphere, as NORAD’s Lieut. Gen. Blaise Frawley said about Chinese surveillance balloons caught drifting over North America in recent months. NORAD is seeking more surveillance capabilities offshore to track these balloons further out, before they reach land, he added. Once those capabilities are in place, they will make it easier to determine what is the best path to take, he added. (Both Canada and the U.S. plan to upgrade their over-the-horizon radars around 2026, the committee members heard.)
“When we have an unknown track and we think it might be a balloon, we first of all have to identify it as such, which is challenging, given our domain awareness issues. In other words, our radar coverage does not go far enough out over our coast and over northern Canada. Once we’ve identified what it is, we have to determine whether it is a threat to North America. We haven’t seen a similar type of threat since February of last year, but we do assess every single balloon,” he said.
3CSD said its priority is to work with allies to learn more about threats. He specified China as “the obvious answer” as to who one of those player would be, but as for Russia, he said it is “a space power in decline.” Russia has been losing international business rapidly due to the ongoing war in Ukraine, which removed most space partnerships from its manifest. That is likely one region that Russia has been seeking more collaboration with China lately; China is not allowed to perform bilateral work with the United States in most contexts, which means it is also removed from many international business opportunities.
Russia “continues to launch, but not nearly at the rate it did in the past, and I think certainly not at a rate it will continue to enjoy,” Adamson said. “I think the sanctions and the activities and the illegal conflict in Ukraine are having adverse effects on Russia’s abilities to do all of that. Certainly it’s losing commercial customers in terms of launch because of its activities in that regard. We are watching it carefully. It continues to field significant capabilities to deny us use of the domain, but we don’t see it using the domain in nearly the same way.”
At the time of the committee hearing, news of a Chinese cyber-weapon that could control satellites – as well as rumours of Russian nuclear weapons in space in the near future – were dominating the news, and as such both military and Canadian Space Agency (CSA) representatives were questioned about the intentions of these countries.
CSA, as its representatives correctly pointed out, is a civilian space agency and they referred such questions to entities such as Global Affairs Canada. That said, they emphasized matters such as Russia’s continued peaceful involvement in the International Space Station and the fact that China and Russia sit on the same United Nations committees to deal with space debris.
“The Canadian Space Agency is working on the peaceful exploration of space. We are working with our partners on a peaceful return to the moon to stay and to work on behalf of humanity to advance exploration. It’s not within our mandate to assess threats of other nations on their actions,” said Guennadi Kroupnik, CSA’s director-general of space utilization.
Kroupnik pointed to CSA’s work within the United Nations’ Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, in which dozens of nations work together on “developing international guidelines and rules of good behaviour” on matters such as space debris. Overall situational awareness comes in part through CSA’s Near Earth Object Surveillance Satellite (NEOSSat), which was launched in 2013 and remains in good health. The bulk of the surveillance work, however, is done through United States’ military satellite networks.
While the CSA focuses on civilian matters, the agency’s Maja Djukic (director general of policy) said engagement with Russia and China comes regularly through “multilateral fora”, which she said is a positive. “Communication is never a bad thing. Communicating even with your adversaries is a good thing. You want to know what is going on, and these multilateral fora allow for that type of conversation.”
The CSA and the military also collaborate on the MDA Space-built RADARSAT series, which is used for applications ranging from coastal monitoring to looking for climate change. RADARSAT-1 is retired. RADARSAT-2 was launched in 2007 and although it remains in good health, is nearing 20 years old. In October, the CSA pledged to blend and extend the RADARSAT Constellation Mission that launched in 2019 and has a nominal lifetime of 2026 (although it may last longer). The new initiative, known as RADARSAT+, has two large goals: to launch a fourth satellite as soon as possible, and to begin procurement for a successor mission called a “fourth-generation national sovereign satellite system.” The definition phase is funded, but manufacturing and launching the system by the 2030s will require more funding.
Editor’s note: This is the first of two articles on the topic of Space Defence.