How to Win the Space Race

For most Canadians, space feels remote and irrelevant—the realm of astronauts and asteroids, not something that affects our daily lives. Many of us can barely see the night sky anymore. But space also hosts the invisible infrastructure that holds society together, facilitated by thousands of satellites. As geopolitical tensions rise, many countries are embarking on a space arms race to secure critical systems in orbit—the Carney government has indicated it will do the same. But more weapons aren’t going to make space safer; if Canada wants to protect itself up there, we need to invest in stability. 

Daily life is powered by space tech. Satellites guide aircraft and ships, synchronize banking systems, map wildfires and storms, connect remote communities and keep energy and transportation networks running. Every time you check the weather, join a webinar, take a rideshare or call a loved one overseas, you’re using satellites. This doesn’t just apply at the individual level. Canada’s electricity grids, water systems, financial networks, air-traffic control and shipping routes all rely on space-based communications and monitoring. 

Canada understood this potential earlier than most. With the 1962 launch of Alouette-1, we became the third country to operate a satellite after the U.S. and Russia. Space soon solved a ubiquitous Canadian problem: how to connect, monitor and serve a vast, rugged and sparsely populated country. Today, however, Canada operates only a small number of government satellites and a modest commercial fleet—less than 100, compared to 10,000-plus American ones. Our three RADARSAT Constellation Mission satellites provide Arctic surveillance and disaster-response imagery. Sapphire, our only dedicated military satellite, tracks objects in orbit. Defence Research and Development Canada has launched a few small Gray Jay satellites to test Arctic surveillance technologies; other missions are small and science-oriented. 

Most of the satellites Canadians depend on aren’t our own. GPS signals come from U.S. satellites. Weather data comes from U.S. and European spacecraft. Broadband in the North is provided by a mix of foreign and domestic commercial operators. Earth-observation imagery often comes from allied or private systems. All of it flows through a small number of Canadian ground stations—many in remote locations—then into the networks that run banking, aviation, shipping and emergency services. It’s an efficient arrangement, but it leaves us dependent on infrastructure we do not fully control, which becomes problematic if those allied relationships erode. And when a single link fails, the consequences cascade quickly—like when one cluster of data centres went out in October, bringing down much of Amazon Web Services. 

Related: Are We Ready for an Arctic War?

That fraught interdependence is why Ottawa is preparing to spend billions on new and upgraded space capabilities, which will go a long way to improving our resilience and sovereignty in space. Canada is building satellites that watch the Arctic, monitor climate change and keep northern communities and deployed forces connected. It is pursuing a sovereign launch capability so we can replace satellites without relying on foreign providers, in addition to a new High Arctic ground station and global military communications system that will give ships, aircraft and patrols more reliable links. And, through NORAD modernization, Canadian funding is helping develop new space-based sensors for missile warning and continental awareness.

Ottawa’s recent investments reflect an unavoidable truth: Canada cannot defend its territory, its people or its economy without space. The harder part, though, is keeping those systems secure within a global order that is increasingly unstable. Some international governments are turning to more aggressive military tools to defend their critical space systems. Several European countries are exploring “active-defence” satellites equipped with laser dazzlers and robotic tools meant to deter or disable close approaches. India and Japan are developing “bodyguard” spacecraft that shadow high-value satellites. China operates dual-use inspector vehicles capable of precise close-in manoeuvres that can interfere with another spacecraft. And in the United States, military doctrine openly includes offensive counterspace capabilities, while interest in space-based missile defence is rising again. These programs vary in scale and rhetoric, but they are built around the same idea: that security will come from the ability to counter threats directly in orbit.

Unlike Earth, space does not have a defined battlefield. Everyone—civilian or military, Canadian or foreign—flies through the same narrow lanes. Satellites are fragile. Physics rules everything. Attempts to impose control in such an environment often make the system more brittle and dangerous, not less. Our government must think carefully before following others down this path. The danger most Canadians are likely to face is not the dramatic version of space warfare we see in Hollywood with missiles and explosions. There have been extreme cases: China’s 2007 anti-satellite test, when they destroyed their own aging equipment, creating thousands of long-lived fragments. And the Americans’ 1962 Starfish Prime nuclear experiment disabled a third of the satellites then in orbit. But these sorts of spectacular events are not what threaten us day to day. 

The real threat is the slow erosion of the networks we rely on, and the growing chance that a mistake will accidentally trigger a wider crisis. Space is one of the most unforgiving operating environments imaginable, making it a daily challenge to run critical systems. Tens of thousands of spacecraft and millions of debris fragments race through orbit at speeds that turn a fleck of paint into shrapnel. A single spacecraft collision can produce thousands of fragments and threaten every operator. Solar storms and radiation surges can fry electronics or knock satellites offline without warning. Even the radio lanes satellites use to talk to Earth are crowded, so signals interfere with one another or get drowned out entirely. 

Physical harshness is only half the challenge; the other half is ambiguity. Most satellites serve both civilian and military purposes, and attacks can look like accidents. When one spacecraft drifts too close to another, operators cannot tell whether it is malfunctioning, recalibrating, gathering intelligence or preparing to interfere. Signals can also be manipulated: GPS can be jammed by overwhelming noise or spoofed by broadcasting false coordinates. European aviation regulators recorded more than 2,300 cases of interference last year. Space weather can do this too. Strong solar activity can scramble or weaken signals, sometimes indistinguishable from intentional interference. Likewise, lasers used for tracking or ranging can also blind or dazzle satellite sensors, and robotic servicing spacecraft—designed for repair or debris removal—can approach or even touch another satellite in ways that look like an accident. Systems are constantly being probed for hacking vulnerabilities, and the stakes can escalate quickly. In February 2022, a cyberattack on the Viasat satellite network disrupted communications across parts of Europe just hours before Russia invaded Ukraine, knocking thousands of German wind turbines offline—proof that a single compromise can ripple far beyond its target. 

These small disruptions—a flicker in GPS, a satellite drifting a little too close—are grey-zone actions. They’re reversible, deniable and easy to misinterpret. A minor anomaly can look like probing; probing can look like preparation; preparation can look like attack. Escalation in space rarely begins with explosions. It begins when misinterpretation piles onto disruption until uncertainty hardens into fear. 

Adding weapons will not create clarity. It will creates more shadows for insecurity to grow. Armed satellites are unlikely to deter jamming or cyber intrusions, and if they ever were used, the debris they generate would endanger everyone—including us. If it wants to make space safer, Canada needs to invest in things that actually reduce danger. We’ve already begun building resilience, and these investments are among the smartest in our defence portfolio. But many weak points remain. Our ground stations are unusually vulnerable because we have so few of them, and they tend to be clustered in remote areas where a fire, flood, cyber breach, broken antenna or power failure can cut access for multiple satellites at once. Cyber probing increases this fragility because commercial systems are often softer targets than military ones. 

True resilience requires more ground-station redundancy and the ability to shift control temporarily to allied or commercial partners. It requires a broader mix of satellite providers so essential services do not depend on one network or foreign operator. Banking, aviation, shipping and other critical infrastructure need backup capabilities for GPS so that disruption doesn’t freeze ATMs or cause travel chaos. And emergency responders need guaranteed access to multiple sources of Earth-observation data so they always have imagery during wildfires, floods or storms. 

We also need to stop system failures from turning into geopolitical crises. This begins with improving the tools that clarify what is happening in orbit: better sensors on the ground and in space, clearer tracking data and faster analysis to distinguish normal behaviour from the unusual. Just as important is sharing that information quickly with allies, regulators and commercial operators so everyone works from the same picture rather than separate guesses. Canada can help by improving monitoring, encouraging reporting of harmful interference and setting expectations for how unusual activity is disclosed and assessed.

Technology can help on this front. Canada’s strengths in robotics, artificial intelligence and emerging quantum sensors can produce tools that make orbit safer: systems that repair or refuel satellites, remove debris, detect anomalous behaviour early or verify signals more reliably. But these technologies only reduce risk when used transparently, which is why we need clear rules and norms in space. Some of these directives exist in broad form, but we don’t have agreed-upon rules for how close satellites can approach, how unusual manoeuvres should be reported, how interference should be disclosed, and how to communicate in the event of a planned manoeuver, let alone a crisis. That is a gap we must fill.

The UN is still the central body for defining responsible behaviour, but practical standards are also emerging through smaller coalitions like the multinational Combined Space Operations partnership, NATO, and increasingly from commercial operators and technical bodies like the International Organization for Standardization. Even domestic regulation plays a role. If Canada sets clear standards for our own commercial and government operations, we can shape norms that others may follow.

Because civilian satellites increasingly carry military traffic, they are tempting targets in a crisis. Canada can reduce this risk by keeping the most sensitive military functions on dedicated systems, being transparent about which satellites serve which roles and requiring strong cyber and safety standards across all satellites that serve Canadians. Civilian infrastructure should not become collateral damage because a system was too ambiguous or too entangled with military functions.

Space will never be risk-free, but investments in stability are what make it safer. Arms will not. They cannot deter the grey-zone disruptions that cause most of the real harm, and if used, they would make the environment more dangerous for everyone. Space needs strong partnerships and clear rules. Because, at that altitude, good governance is good defence.

Jessica West is a senior researcher at Project Ploughshares, a peace and security research institute, and a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation.