Never before have NATO member states spent so much money together on space capabilities. Member states will provide $1 billion to invest in intelligence sharing on issues affecting space.
The idea is that this will improve the exchange of data from national and commercial satellites. This massive multinational investment is taking place against the backdrop of the situation in space after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This has created a lot of tension between NATO and Russia.
War in Ukraine
This is because warfare involves the use of battlefield surveillance and space-based communications, among other things. “The ongoing war in Ukraine has further highlighted the increasing reliance of intelligence services on data and assets from space,” NATO said.
The 17 signatories to the agreement ensure NATO can better monitor activities on land and at sea. That means they know what’s going on more accurately and in real time. It’s essentially a game of satellites, which are used for reconnaissance and surveillance. Six NATO countries already have reconnaissance satellites or plan to launch them soon. With this new program, NATO also plans to share intelligence via cloud solutions and wants to use artificial intelligence to help manage the vast amounts of data.
NATO Space Operations Centre
The agreement concerns everything related to integrating space into military command. In 2019, space was officially recognized as the fifth warfighting area, alongside air, land, sea and cyberspace. The NATO Space Operations Centre was later established in 2020 to support space travel for NATO military operations.
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