NATO Encouraged to Take Fast Action in Space Management Objectives

Satellite operators and stakeholders are working with NATO as the alliance evolves its role as a space guardian, industry veterans said Tuesday at SATELLITE.

NATO has a critical role in aggregating requirements in a fast-paced operational environment that's changing constantly, according to Don Brown, the head of Global Government for Amazon Kuiper. “What we're really looking for is accelerating from discussion to action within NATO, and finding the means for them to do that. There's an immense amount that NATO can do.”

Robert Palm, senior director of International Business development for HawkEye 360, said that he appreciates the challenge of speaking to NATO, which is one of the projects that he is assigned. “It’s to crack the nut, so to speak,” he said. “There are a lot of gears in the process. The largest challenge is time, because getting those requirements changed from a mindset of fine, large, exquisite, determined industrial systems to an end-state of something that's agile, incorporating innovative ideas that's being done at the speed of venture capital, are just two completely different things. NATO does a lot of things that help companies close that loop.”

HawkEye 360 has an ongoing effort to try to solve a difficult maritime challenge of infrastructure cables that are being cut sometimes on a weekly and even daily basis in the North Sea. “It's a very vexing problem, and it can't be solved by just single operators together,” Palm said. “So we're working through an innovation challenge. And it takes a long time.”

Brown offered his take on the innovation challenge, talking about a NATO initiative called HEIST, which is short for hybrid space-submarine architecture ensuring infosec of telecommunications. HEIST began in July of 2024 and aims to make the internet less vulnerable to disruption by rerouting the flow of information into space in the event that undersea cables are attacked or accidentally severed.

“One thing HEIST is looking at is how do you detect the cable interdiction right now? If you detect it, how do you use satellite networks to mitigate that event?” He added that NATO is good at research and development projects and what matters. “The pace is picking up,” Brown said.

Because of the “Tower of Babel” that NATO is, having customers on the far edge being able to understand and interpret the requirements through a very basic procurement document means there's a lot of education that's required in between, Palm said.

“It’s required from the ground up. The appeal to NATO is to allow companies to not be afraid to go in and talk to user groups, or set up situations in which we can have honest and earnest discussions about NATO,” he said.

One of the other issues discussed was standards for space traffic, led by Joe Chan, chairman of the Space Data Association (SDA). “One of the things that we potentially support is to help to provide space traffic management so we know what the traffic is to allow NATO or other organizations to detect non-routine activities in space so that they can use the resources and focus on them.

“There's not really a standard in terms of how we manage the space traffic,” Chan added. “I think that's probably where we work together with NATO, and maybe help to promote that idea with other organizations.”

He said the SDA has experience in working with multi-national members with knowledge of how to exchange data in a way that is secure and trusted. “But one of the issues people sometimes do not feel comfortable with is sharing data, as we know that we have members from different companies, so we have a way to manage it.”

The goal of the SDA is to make safe space operations, he said. “I think we've been doing that. But we know that not everyone will share data.”

NATO’s space strategy needs to be defined, and the commercial satellite industry can help. Brown made the point that commercial capabilities in the last 15 years have grown exponentially, and NATO has a critical role in that.

“That’s because NATO has a tremendous reach across countries, across threat environments, across operational entities, to make the point that commercial has a critical role — not just in broadband, but in all these elements that are critical to security of the NATO Alliance, and all of its members, " he said. “That is what I would be looking for in a space strategy.”

Palm posed the question: Will the U.S. government protect commercial assets in space physically from interference? “We know there's a growing threat from strategic competitors. That, to me, comes first and foremost to mind. So is NATO willing to do that protection? Is that under their protection or not? I think it's in everyone's mind but probably best left unsaid because it's a really a very hard, difficult problem to try to assure people that their platform that is working on behalf of NATO will be protected.” VS