The Australian space industry has cause for excitement after a joint statement issued by the Prime Minister of Australia and the President of the United States on 20 May 2023.
The statement makes it clear that Australia will play an important role in future space launch and exploration. This creates great opportunity, and also sharpens the focus on key features of the Australian space industry – among them, satellite cyber security.
This alert covers key elements of the joint statement as well as emerging issues in satellite cyber security:
The Technology Safeguards Agreement
The joint statement confirmed that the Australian and US governments have agreed in principle to a Technology Safeguards Agreement (TSA) that will “allow for the controlled transfer of sensitive US launch technology and data”.
Once the TSA is signed, then subject to any requirements to enact it into domestic law, it will form a treaty between the Australian and US governments with legally binding obligations on both sides.
As the TSA has been made ‘in principle’, its definitive terms are yet to take form. The joint statement confirms that “final domestic authorisations” are required before the TSA becomes binding. There is as yet no publicly disclosed timeline for this to occur.
However, there is an existing TSA between the United Kingdom and the US which provides a useful guide as to what can be expected, especially since Australia, the UK and the US have consistent strategic initiatives through the Five Eyes and AUKUS arrangements:
What is apparent is that the Australian Space Agency was right to say that the TSA will show to the world that Australia is “open for launch”.
The Artemis Program: collaboration on Moon and Mars initiatives
The joint statement also confirmed that a new Australia-based ground station will be established to provide communications support to lunar missions as part of NASA’s Artemis Program.
The Artemis Program seeks to return a human presence to the Moon and establish a permanent base on the lunar south pole, with the aim of conducting research to facilitate the human exploration of Mars. While Artemis is US-led, the Program is supported by 24 States Parties to the Artemis Accords; Australia was a founding Party to the Accords, which it signed in October 2020.
The Accords build on the 1967 Outer Space Treaty (to which Australia is a Party) and have the aim of establishing the principles for the responsible conduct of the Artemis Program.
In conjunction with the US and other international partners, Australia is shaping up to have a pivotal role in the Artemis Program:
- The Australian Space Agency’s Moon to Mars initiative commenced in 2020-21, providing grants to Australian businesses and researchers to fuel Australia’s space economy and contribute to NASA’s efforts.
- Australia and the United States signed an agreement for an Australian-developed lunar rover to be taken to the Moon on a future Artemis mission.
- The Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex, which supported the original Apollo missions, played a key communications role in the Artemis I mission and will serve as the link between the astronauts on the upcoming Artemis II mission and NASA’s mission control centre in Houston.
- Other industry-led Australian initiatives also seek to support the Artemis Project, such as the SEVEN SISTERS Australian Lunar Exploration Mission, which aims to make Australia a leader in space exploration by 2030.
- In February of this year, NASA Deputy Administrator, Colonel Pamela Melroy, confirmed that a new lunar exploration ground site (LEGS) would be located in Australia, which appears to have pre-empted the Prime Minister and President’s announcement. Details as to where the LEGS will be located and what exact role it will play in the Artemis Program are still uncertain. What is certain, however, is that Australia is serious about playing a role in the Artemis Program and in engaging with industry partners to boost its contribution to the space economy.
Satellite Cyber Security
With the Defence Strategic Review giving prominence to the two “new” warfighting domains for the Australian Defence Force – space and cyber – the military is undoubtedly thinking about cyber in space and protecting space assets from cyber attack. But is the commercial sector potentially exposed, comparatively speaking?
Some well publicised events have brought this issue to the fore over the last few years:
- In 2022, a cyber attack on Viasat’s KA-SAT network in Europe, attributed to Russian operatives, disrupted internet services for users numbered in the thousands.
- In April 2023, a Taiwanese government agency “calibrating a radio wave transmitter” caused the Global Positioning System (GPS) to malfunction. It has been estimated that a GPS outage in the United States “has the potential to cost the US economy $1 billion per day.”
Legislators in the US are concerned enough about the issue of satellite cyber security to have developed legislation which would require the US government’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to assist in protecting commercial satellite owners and operators from “disruptive cyber-attacks”. The Bill has advanced through the committee process and now awaits a floor vote in the Senate.
In Australia, space technology is a critical infrastructure sector under the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act 2018 (Cth) (the SOCI Act), which has implications for owners and operators of commercial space services. There is currently no definition under the SOCI Act of what constitutes a “critical space technology asset”, although some assets may be captured as carriers and carriage service providers as critical telecommunications assets. Given the developments referred to above, it's possible there could be moves to expand the scope of the SOCI Act to more directly cover space assets such as satellites and satellite ground stations that are not also critical telecommunications assets.
We will continue to monitor developments in these areas and encourage you to read our other space-related material here.
