The space race of the 1960s was about which country would put boots on the moon first. While some of the frontrunners are the same, today’s space race is quite different: Today it’s about who might build on the moon first.
It’s been more than 50 years since a human set foot on the moon. Now China and the United States are working toward habitable long-term structures.
But why would we want to build on the moon?
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Basically, it’s a first-come, first-served situation. No one owns the moon — there is no border divide, no land-ownership dispute and no indigenous aliens to bargain with (that we know of) — it’s all just there for the taking. So, it only makes sense that everyone wants to take it.
Though the Outer Space Treaty states no one owns the moon and no one can own parts of the moon, the rules for private companies are ambiguous. In 2020 the U.S. Trump administration produced an executive order that allows private companies to mine on the moon.
IMAGE: Darya Kawa Mirza
Charting a journey through the history of lunar water exploration
For centuries, scientists have theorized about whether water exists on the moon. From bountiful lunar oceans to arid, thirsty regolith, theories of water on the lunar surface have been extreme. Today there is no longer need for theory as the lunar surface provides answers to the question: Can I get a drink of water on the moon? Follow the science as it reveals how early theories led to what we know today: Read more›››
1645: First map of the moon is produced by Dutch astronomer Michael van Langren, suggesting the dark holes on the moon visible to the naked eye are oceans.
1892: American astronomer William Pickering suggests that because the moon has no atmosphere, any water would evaporate.
1960s: Scientists theorize the extreme cold of parts of the moon that never see the sun could be home to frozen water.
1969-’72 Regolith collected by the Apollo mission turns up devoid of water.
2008: Re-examination of lunar soil samples reveals H2O molecules.
2018: A team of scientists confirms ice rests inside craters at both lunar poles. The temperature here never rises above -250 degrees Fahrenheit.
2020: NASA confirms water on the sunlit surfaces as well.
2023: China mission discovers tiny glass beads containing water in lunar soil where meteorites smash into the moon. There are billions, perhaps trillions, on the surface, each no bigger than the width of two hairs.‹‹‹ Read less
And now that we know the moon isn’t made of cheese, players are hard at work to get pieces of what it is made of.
It must be something spectacular for them to want it so badly, right?
Sorry to disappoint, but with the exception of a handful of new minerals, it’s really not much different from what we have here on Earth.
“The Earth and the moon are made out of the same stuff because the solar system was made out of the same stuff,” says Ian Crawford, professor of planetary science and astrobiology at Birbeck University of London.
Locally sourced materials
The problem is that stuff here on Earth doesn’t help us build structures in space, and that‘s the long-term plan: Build on the moon without carting materials all the way from Earth or robbing Earth of its resources. “Gradually increasing access to lunar resources may help bootstrap a space-based economy from which the world economy, and possibly also the world’s environment, will ultimately benefit,” Crawford says.
Don’t forget about the cost, says Sean Swei, director of the Space Technology & Innovation Center at Khalifa University. “Here, the cost is most likely measured by the amount of energy needed to perform mining and conversion. For example, sending 1 liter of water to the moon costs about U.S.$1.2 million. If we could come up with a much more effective launch vehicle, the cost could drop to U.S.$10,000. Hence, large payload delivery to the moon might still be reasonable, though for sustainability we’d still want to enable in-situ resource utilization.”
Progress is underway
NASA in 2022 announced it hired four private companies to mine the lunar surface. The first is Lunar Outpost, a company with a mission to settle humans on the moon. Lunar Outpost charged NASA a dollar for the private company’s rover to pick up a bit of lunar soil, take a snapshot of it and transfer ownership to NASA.
This marked the beginning of commercializing lunar minerals. It also marked the first action in NASA’s plan to build a long-term dwelling for humans on the lunar surface by 2030
NASA’s Artemis program launched its first phase to test its new mega-spaceship in 2022. It was uncrewed — by humans — and it successfully returned to Earth with all of its mannequins and stuffed toy Shaun the Sheep unharmed.
Artemis II will take astronauts on a junket around the moon, and Artemis III will be the boots-on-the-moon finale with an ultimate goal of establishing habitable bases.
Printing a place to live
But for those bases they’ll need building materials. And they’ll use modern technology to produce them. This is where 3D printing comes in.
NASA has toyed in the past with 3D printing on the International Space Station, using lunar regolith for research purposes. But in 2022 the agency announced it had awarded a U.S.$60 million contract to tech-construction company Olympus to construct a 3D laser printer that will build on the moon and Mars.
Meanwhile, Khalifa University is working on autonomous/robotic assembly of large habitat infrastructures on the moon. This race is on.
The Chinese space program also aims to mine the moon for exploration purposes. And while building a safe, sustainable shelter on the moon is paramount for all players, so is the discovery of possible energy sources.
China, too, is pursuing 3D printing. According to a 2023 Reuters report, China is hoping to use the technology to 3D print a lunar station. Its 2028 mission has a robot tasked with constructing a brick from moon minerals.
CAPTION: This photo might look a bit strange, yet those are the actual colors of the lunar surface (with a bit of a push to make them distinguishable and more visible). Those colors come from the minerals found there. Areas rich in iron, for example, have an orange tint, while areas rich in titanium have a blue tint. IMAGE: Ritesh Biswas
The United States and Russia have discovered five new minerals on the moon. But China’s 2020 lunar mission resulted in the discovery of a sixth: a phosphorus mineral named Changesite-(Y). On Earth, phosphate plays an essential role in plant growth. While it is not known what the phosphate from the barrel-shaped moon crystals will reveal, it could be a possible energy source for those long-term lunar visits.
Scientists in China analyzing the Changesite-(Y) crystal determined it contains an isotope of helium-3, which is scarce on Earth.
A better nuclear material?
This discovery could be an energy game-changer, says Gerald Kulcinski, director emeritus of the Fusion Technology Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“The amount of energy in the helium-3 on the moon could produce all the electricity needed on the Earth for about 1,000 years,” he says. Astronauts from the U.S. Apollo program discovered in 1970 that helium-3 is in almost every sample brought back from the moon, Kulcinski says.
Helium-3 is effused by the sun and transported through the solar system by solar winds. But Earth’s magnetic field repels helium-3; only a small amount penetrates the atmosphere.
The moon, however, has about 1 million metric tons of the material, Kulcinski tells KUST Review.
The moon’s resources could be a proverbial goldmine for nuclear energy. Experts say 40 grams (eight teaspoons) of helium-3 could provide the energy equivalent of 5,000 tons of coal. Because helium-3 is not radioactive itself, it could provide safer and cleaner nuclear energy.
“He-3 is one of the advanced fusion fuels that can release enormous amounts of energy without the drawbacks of greenhouse gases from fossil fuels or large amounts of radioactive waste from fission reactors,” Kulcinski says.
What else is there?
So if there’s energy resources in abundance on the moon, surely, you might think, there are many other untapped assets there too. Sadly, you’d be wrong, says Birbeck University’s Crawford.
Though much of the moon is unexplored, Crawford says he believes there won’t be any significant future finds to benefit us on Earth. He contends this race is about what we can use while in space — whether it’s a lunar station or a Jeff Bezos hotel in Earth’s low orbit — and the media hype of the race is geo-politics at play.
“It’s interesting and important from a scientific point of view, and though there are only 10 locations on the surface of the moon from which we’ve actually collected samples and analyzed them, I doubt there are going to be any big surprises that are going to be relevant,” he tells KUST Review.
Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means. — Outer Space Treaty
It’s the year 2122. A space tug owned by the Weyland-Yutani Corp. and diverted by a distress signal has discovered a potentially valuable asset on a distant planet. But rival company Blue Sun says it registered an intellectual property claim on the planet’s biological resources even though it had never sent teams there.
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Who should prevail in court? The scenario may be set in the far future, but the law the decision might be based on is rooted in our past.
| Individuals in space
All countries have laws, rules and governing bodies determining what is legal — and what is not. Emigrate to a new country, adopt a new legal system. But what about moving to a new planet or space station? Under which — or whose — jurisdiction would your new home fall? Would there be one at all?
Maritime law could be one model to follow. When a ship is in international waters, the laws of the country of registration apply. An American cruise ship in the middle of the Pacific follows the American legal system. Should that ship drift into another country’s territorial waters, it would fall under the jurisdiction of the country whose territory it is physically in.
Currently, a spacecraft is considered an extension of its country of origin. So while on your space shuttle bus to your new home on the moon, the maritime international waters model applies. Upon landing, that’s where things get complicated.
According to the 1967 Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies (more commonly known as the Outer Space Treaty or OST), “outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.”
Space belongs to no one — no law applies universally. Literally.
Enter “extraterritorial jurisdiction.” According to this principle, people are subject to the laws of their home country even outside its territories. When a person is in another country, that country’s laws supersede the home country’s laws — but when they aren’t in any country, like on the moon, the home country’s laws do apply. Two people on the moon could be subject to different laws.
The 1998 Space Station Agreement says, “Canada, the European Partner States, Japan, Russia, and the United States may exercise criminal jurisdiction over personnel in or on any flight element who are their respective nationals.” Extraterrestrial jurisdiction applies.
Yun Zhao is head of the department of law at the University of Hong Kong. In an article for Space Policy, Zhao writes: “Objects and personnel inside space objects that are transported from Earth into outer space do not enter a legal vacuum during their sojourn; they continue in a confirmed legal relationship with the Earth. This legal relationship is maintained and connected by registration.”
The Convention on Registration of Objects Launched into Outer Space requires entities to establish and maintain the registration of space objects. It’s maritime law again, just in the vastness of space instead of the waves. According to Zhao, whether the space object is governmental or non-governmental is of no consequence: If an American company launches a spacecraft, it’s an American spacecraft and any person on board is subject to American law.
So far, fewer than 700 people have been to space. All planned to return — but what will govern those who choose to stay there?
| Extraterrestrial human settlement
The China National Space Administration has been rapidly developing its space program, including a successful landing of a rover on the far side of the moon in 2019, and Mars in 2021. It has expressed interest in establishing a crewed lunar base and plans to send crewed missions by 2030.
Outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty.
The Russian space agency, Roscosmos, has a long history of space exploration and has expressed interest in establishing a lunar base in partnership with other countries. NASA plans to send astronauts back to the moon by 2024 under the Artemis program, with plans for long-term space exploration and settlement. Within the next 100 years, the UAE aims to establish a human settlement on Mars. Historical explorations on Earth have taught us that whoever gets there first lays claim to the land.
But can this — and should this — apply to the extraterrestrial?
For the most part, current space exploration is an international collaborative effort. The challenges of exploring and utilizing space are immense and no single country can achieve them alone. By working together, countries can pool their resources, share expertise, and spread the risks and costs of space exploration. Look up at the International Space Station, a prime example of successful international collaboration in space, an unlikely if not impossible endeavor if it weren’t operated by a partnership of five space agencies: NASA, Roscosmos, the European Space Agency (ESA), Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).
Space exploration is inherently a global effort, and if this spirit of collaboration can continue, the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 could be enough to protect humankind’s interests in space. As no one may claim ownership of any celestial body, everything in space becomes the common heritage of humanity.
Perhaps this will suffice. Certainly, president of the International Institute of Space Law and ESA’s special advisor for political affairs Kai-Uwe Schrogl believes in it:
“Common heritage is the only thing that can save us,” Schrogl tells KUST Review. “We can learn from our experiences here on Earth and develop these principles of common heritage for space. Look at Antarctica or deep-sea mining.”
GRAPHICS: Anya Lambert & Anas Albounni
In 1960, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower proposed that the principles of the Antarctic Treaty of 1959 be applied to outer space. The signatories to the Antarctic Treaty (of which there were only 12 in 1959, but a further 17 signed by 2010) recognize “that it is in the interest of all mankind that Antarctica shall continue forever to be used exclusively for peaceful purposes and shall not become the scene or object of international discord.”
Sounds familiar. There are many overlaps between the Antarctic Treaty and the Outer Space Treaty, which makes sense: They’re both remote, extreme environments with potentially valuable resources, and lots of people want to explore, exploit and possibly make territorial claims.
While only 50 countries have signed the Antarctic Treaty, 112 countries are party to the Outer Space Treaty, with another 23 signed but not ratified. This is encouraging to those with Schrogl’s worldview of optimism and common heritage, but there may be a more earthly reason: The Outer Space Treaty started as the 1963 Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which prohibited nuclear weapons tests or detonations under water, in the atmosphere or in outer space. One hundred twenty-six countries signed that one.
However, as Schrogl points out to KUST Review: “We haven’t seen anyone break the Antarctica Treaty, and we haven’t seen anyone break space law.”
Within the next 100 years, the UAE aims to establish a human settlement on Mars.
As for claiming land, the Antarctica example works again. During the Antarctic Treaty discussions, many countries wanted to claim part of the continent by virtue of their citizens having reached there first, with some claims overlapping. The moon and Mars may offer more surface area to divvy up, but just like it was decided no country could claim sovereignty over any part of Antarctica, so too should the Outer Space Treaty hold up.
Zhao agrees: “More than 50 years after the OST entered into force, it is justifiable to hold that the non-appropriation principle has successfully ensured the safe and orderly development of space activities.”
| Commercial space activities
The increasing commercialization of space is leading to new legal challenges, particularly in the areas of intellectual property and the use of space resources. Private companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin are playing an increasingly important role in space exploration, and there is a growing need for regulation of their activities. This includes issues related to liability, intellectual property and the use of space resources. As private companies begin to exploit resources like water and minerals on the moon and other celestial bodies, clear legal frameworks will need to be developed to govern these activities.
For the University of Hong Kong’s Zhao, intellectual property protection plays a significant role in promoting the sustainable development of space commercialization.
“Over the past few decades, the space sector has witnessed an accelerated speed of commercialization,” Zhao says. “Due to the advancement of space technology and gradual reduced cost of space exploration, private entities are looking for new chances to participate in the development of space commercialization. However, existing policies and treaties fail to consider international intellectual property.
GRAPHICS: Anya Lambert & Anas Albounni
“Given that space exploration heavily relies on technology, which certainly requires intellectual property rights protection, the expansion of space commercialization further enhances such demand. Without an explicit and standing legal basis in space law that provides IP protection to private entities, they may be deterred from investing and thereby actively participating in commercial space activities.
“Space commercialization cannot be disconnected from IP protection. The essentially public nature of outer space law appears to clash with the private nature of IP law,” Zhao adds.
At its core, IP law relates to the establishment and protection of intellectual creations, such as inventions, designs, patents and trademarks. IP law offers economic incentive because it allows people to benefit from the information and intellectual goods they create, protecting their ideas and preventing copying.
For the companies charging ahead in an unclear framework, the Outer Space Treaty holds up.
“Article II of the OST also states that outer space cannot be appropriated by means of use,” Zhao says. “Therefore, from a legal point of view, neither the scientific use nor commercial use of outer space will ever be sufficient to validate a territorial sovereignty claim. Landing on the moon constitutes a ‘use’ of outer space, but it does not and can never constitute a ‘national appropriation’ that leads to territorial sovereignty. The major purpose of Article II was to protect outer space from the potential conflict which may be caused by territorial or colonization-drive[n] ambitions.”
While he wants further clarification for the future, Zhao isn’t too worried for those private entities going forth now: “In general, the IP regime we have now should be fine.”
| Space debris
With more and more objects being sent into space, the amount of space debris is increasing rapidly. This debris poses a significant risk to both manned and unmanned space missions, and there is currently no comprehensive international legal framework to regulate its removal.
University of Hong Kong’s Zhao points to the Outer Space Treaty:
“Article VI makes states internationally responsible for their national activities in space, and Article VII makes states internationally liable for their launch of space objects into outer space and the damage caused thereof.
Sounds simple enough, and Kaitlyn Johnson, author of the Center for Strategic and International Studies report on key governance issues in space, calls space debris mitigation one of the best developed areas of space law.
“Space debris is a growing problem with almost every launch,” she writes. “Many space experts acknowledge that without norms of behavior or debris removal missions, the space environment may be permanently damaged.
We haven’t seen anyone break the Antarctica Treaty, and we haven’t seen anyone break space law.
– Kai-Uwe Schrogl
There are several international mechanisms, national policies, and industry efforts to curb the creation and proliferation of space debris, but despite this progress, few international standards or norms exist.”
The few that do exist, Johnson adds, are out of date with today’s technology and the proliferation of commercial satellites. She points out the recent near miss between an ESA Earth observation satellite and one of SpaceX’s first satellites for its broadband internet provision plan. The U.S. Air Force tracked the two satellites, noting the chance of collision as 1 in 1,000. In the end, ESA chose to maneuver its satellite away from the SpaceX orbital path.
“In just this single example, it is clear that the lack of agreed international norms and processes for space-traffic management could have caused a devastating event in the space environment,” Johnson writes. “A lack of defined international regulations means the choice of how to proceed is left to the satellite operators, but in cases where satellites are not operational, and cannot be maneuvered out of the way, all the international community can do is wait and watch.”
P.J. Blount, IISL’s executive secretary and lecturer in law for Cardiff University, firmly agrees the most pressing concern for policymakers is the safety of operations in Earth’s orbit.
“At the moment, there is increasing congestion in parts of Earth’s orbital space, which has been coupled with a proliferation of space debris,” he tells KUST Review. “Space operations are coordinated through a variety of ad hoc frameworks, but as operators and objects increase these frameworks are strained under these burdens. While understanding how resource activities may work out in the future is important, on-orbit congestion and the need for space traffic is a problem that the space industry faces today.”
Johnson says 2019 saw the real start of united efforts to better coordinate space-debris management and space-traffic management measures. It started with the International Astronautical Congress in 2019, she says, where the international space community collectively called for better space-situational awareness and the need to mitigate debris-creating events in the space domain.
These guidelines are voluntary and not legally binding, but Johnson says they signify a united effort to track all objects in space and to limit debris.
Part of this is the guideline encouraging increased communication between countries and non-governmental entities, and a United Nations information platform to manage space traffic.
2019 also saw the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) update its primary document on space-debris mitigation guidelines, making its compliance requirements stricter. The ISO crafts and promotes international standardization for policy areas including food safety, health care, agriculture, commercial technology and space.
GRAPHICS: Anya Lambert & Anas Albounni
Compliance with ISO standards is generally accepted as industry best practice, and Johnson points out that several nations follow ISO guidelines and either write the standards directly into their national policies or use them as a basis for crafting unique policy.
Developing international guidelines and policies takes time, and Johnson worries that real efforts to protect the space domain will not occur until a major debris-creating event takes place. However, she also highlights the strong industry and multinational consensus that protecting the space environment and focusing on efforts to mitigate the creation of debris should be an international priority.
| What lies ahead?
“The 1967 OST was made before the era of space commercialization,” Zhao tells KUST Review. “It contains only general principles; there is a need to further clarify the application of these principles in our modern life with a lot of new development. There are loopholes in the current legal regime and an urgent need for the international society to negotiate to come up with some documents guiding new space activities.”
Schrogl also highlighted the need to update and develop space law for the modern space race, but remains optimistic about the future:
“The threat that member states (of the OST) go alone is omnipresent,” he tells KUST Review. “We have cases and cases where we see this on Earth but we have also seen over the last 50 years or so where respect for international law and the rule of law is growing. Wherever countries think ‘I can be first,’ they try and find loopholes or even use brute force, and we have to be realistic about that. But at the same time, if you look at it with a historical perspective, it’s not so bad how, in particular, space law has been applied and respected.”
So what does 21st century space law look like?
For Zhao, expert in intellectual property law, IP is the main concern. He highlights scientific experiments carried out in space where no countries can claim sovereignty and says we’ll need to determine the rules for IP claims for these results. For him, whether the national legal regime would apply to these situations is the big question.
Schrogl doesn’t know what the future holds for space law but recognizes the sheer number of issues to be ironed out:
“Space law has expanded. From the beginning, it was meant to provide an understanding of the status of outer space and the status of the actors in outer space. This it did extremely well: It’s a space for free use and non-appropriation, states are responsible and liable, and private actors can only act if they are authorized by the states. This holds true today. But space law’s extension has to regulate the behavior of these actors. We need provisions for space traffic management to avoid accidents and collisions, for cleaning space debris, and for long-term sustainability.”
Space law isn’t standing still: There’s COPUOS working to develop guidelines and principles for the exploration and use of space resources. The International Institute of Space Law helps international organizations and national institutions cooperate to develop space law, and the International Astronautical Federation leads space advocacy across 75 countries. There are 11 academic journals dedicated to space law and policy.
And while Schrogl admits progress is slow, “we’re building a new dimension of space law.”
Previously, it took biometrics such as facial recognition, fingerprints or retinal scans to identify the unique physical characteristics of each human, but now identification might be as simple as measuring your ear.
Using ears to identify humans isn’t new, but our favorite crime shows still rely on old faithful methods — dusting for fingerprints or collecting DNA — to land a suspect. In all fairness, criminals are much more likely to touch things with their hands than rub their ears all over a crime scene.
It was, however, used in a 1997 murder trial after an investigation lifted an ear-print from the window the killer entered through. The subsequent conviction was the first using ear prints as an identifier. However, the verdict in 2004 was overturned on appeal as DNA from the ear print indicated a different suspect. It was the opinion of the expert used in the trial that solidified the guilty verdict.
That case was flawed, but recent studies show ears are just as reliable an identifier as our fingerprints.
A team of researchers from the University of Georgia in 2022 developed software that scans your ear. It was intended to serve a post-COVID world in which people wear masks — muffling voice recognition — and are conscious of what they touch.
Masks aren’t the problem they used to be, but there are other security operations in which ear identification can be instrumental.
Ears are fully formed and developed at birth. Except for the consequences of age they really don’t change over time. Each ear is unique, and your ears are even unique from each other. This makes them a reliable source of identification – even from a distance.
You can’t access someone’s fingerprints or DNA from a photo, but even a photograph of your ear can tell us who you are. And with the number of crimes recorded on video, ear biometrics can help identify the culprits.
A more recent development in ear identification came when a team of forensic and dental scientists from all over the world built on a 2011 study by Roberto Cameriere that measured the four anatomic regions of the ear and combined the measurements to produce a code that is unique to each person.
They implemented a larger specimen group and divided it across multiple ethnic groups to stretch the method and determine further accuracy. They found that when they added the codes for each person’s ears together, there were zero code repeats. This means 814 unique ear identifiers. The team concluded that “the probability of two different individuals having the same code (false-positive identification) was found to be less than .07 percent.”
So, if you’re planning to launch a crime wave, make sure to wear ear muffs. They’ll protect you from the cold and from getting caught.
But if you happen to forget, perhaps you can simply slouch your way through your criminal activity. Or not.
A team of researchers from Khalifa University suggest the factors that inhibit accurate ear identification in 2D and 3D images — posture, light and scaling — can be overcome with combining both, “To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time two-dimensional and three-dimensional ear attributes have been merged to build a detector and descriptor for matching a pair of 3D ears. Combining features from the 2D domain and features from the 3D domain considerably increased recognition efficiency.”
The team suggests that a keypoint detector and a descriptor, built from angular features of 2D ears and textures of 3D ears, can lead to more accurate ear identification. The texture and shape combined enhance the veracity of the results.
“This holistic approach culminates in the achievement of state-of-the-art results while simultaneously ensuring robustness to illumination and pose variations,” says Iyyakutti Iyappan Ganapathi. He is lead author on the study and a post-doctoral fellow in the electrical engineering and computer science department at Khalifa University.
Ganapathi says while there is comparable accuracy between other commonly used biometrics and ear identification, a lack of data is a challenge.
However, he is hopeful going forward.
“Looking ahead, it is foreseeable that, as more ear data becomes accessible, researchers will increasingly turn their attention towards ear biometrics as a viable means of human recognition. This nascent avenue holds significant promise for the future of biometric identification,” he tells KUST Review.
Space was once a domain largely associated with government actions. Sovereign states were solely responsible for sending probes, satellites and crewed missions to Earth’s orbit, the moon and beyond. The technology was similarly segregated: Terrestrial and space systems were generally isolated from each other, creating a kind of “security by obscurity.”
In recent years, however, private industry has launched into space, providing satellite services for telecommunications to the Earthbound that are projected to become a U.S.$1.4 trillion market by 2030. These systems in space talk to the systems on the ground, and the scope is only growing. Cellphone users of tomorrow, for example, may be able to tap into satellites to seamlessly send messages when there is no terrestrial connectivity. Elon Musk’s Starlink is a good, live example.
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The World Economic Forum also points out that modern systems establish interfaces across “traditional trust boundaries,” such as partners and customers. And more complex systems have more potentially exploitable attack surfaces.
With such growth and Earth-space network interconnectivity amid such other sectors as the military, aviation, emergency services and utilities, however, comes risk from those who might use those connections to steal, extort, sow chaos or wage war.
Real-world examples
A series of cyberattacks in 2022, for example, targeted three wind farms operated by Germany-based companies. A ransomware group supporting the Russian government said it was responsible for one of the attacks.
Christoph Zipf, a spokesman for WindEurope, a Brussels-based industry group, sees links to the Russia-Ukraine war.
Matthias Brandt, director of Deutsche Windtechnik, which maintains wind turbines and was one of the companies hacked, tells the Wall Street Journal that the renewable-energy sector will become an even more attractive target.
“We need high IT security standards,” he says.
Earlier the same year as the conflict unfolded, another attack linked to hostilities in the region targeted satellite modems, knocking out internet service in Ukraine and other parts of Europe for tens of thousands.
Ukrainian cyber official Victor Zhora called the hack “a really huge loss in communications in the very beginning of the war,” CNN reports.
In response, SpaceX, which created the Starlink network of 3,335 active satellites, shipped truckloads of Starlink terminals to Ukraine in April 2022, providing hospitals, banks and families with internet access. The military also used the network, prompting Starlink to curb the country’s use of the satellites for offensive drones.
By April 2023, the Washington Post was reporting on classified U.S. intelligence that concluded Russia was far more advanced in its plans to target the Starlink network than previously thought.
Additionally: “Starlink usage in Ukraine has been associated with Starlink users’ uplink transmissions becoming beacons for airstrike,” says Christina Pöpper, a professor of computer science at New York University-Abu Dhabi who focuses on information and communications security.
Space, it seems, has become an active theater in Earth conflicts. And the cyberattacks in this conflict could be a harbinger of many more such attacks to come.
Even nations not involved in war have reason to be wary of cyberattacks in space, Pöpper tells KUST Review. “(They) can have far-reaching implications, affecting various aspects of the lives of everyday people from communication and navigation to personal privacy, safety, economic stability and national security.”
3 kinds of attacks
Governments or rogue elements could target satellite systems in a number of ways.
They can target services, rather than the satellites themselves, by hacking and GPS spoofing, as seen in the Ukraine conflict, denying millions access to essential services.
They could also use anti-satellite weapons (ASATs) to target satellites in orbit.
Juliana Suess is a research analyst and policy lead for space security at the Royal United Services Institute, a defense and security think tank with headquarters in London.
“ASAT attack consequences range from temporary and reversible to permanent and non-reversible,” she tells KUST Review.
“The potential consequences are numerous. It needs to be borne in mind that a space system is made up of three basic elements — the satellite in space, the ground station on Earth and the links in between. All three are potentially vulnerable to attack.”
“For example, an adversary may take control (permanently or temporarily) of a satellite through hacking,” Suess says. “They may also disrupt (jam) or spoof the signal reaching or emanating from the satellite with temporary effect. A counterspace measure may also be to prevent a satellite from collecting information — for example by dazzling the sensors onboard of an Earth Observation satellite.”
China, India and Russia have been criticized for testing physically destructive ASAT weapons on their own satellites. But such tactics are expensive, don’t guarantee success and can add to the growing problem of space debris.
The United Nations has approved a non-binding resolution calling for a halt to testing one type of such weapons, the debris-generating direct-ascent ASATs. It cited environmental issues and a desire to prevent an arms race in space. By April 2023, 13 countries, including the United States, Japan and Germany, had pledged to ban the tests.
“Space is difficult,” say Oxford University researchers in a paper published in IEEE. “A launch program alone does not guarantee the resources and precision required to operate a meaningful ASAT capability.”
And then there are cyber-ASATs.
These, the Oxford researchers say, “threaten the foundations of space’s longstanding stability due to their high accessibility, low attributability and low risk of collateral damage.”
In other words: They’re easy to use, hard to pin on the offender and probably won’t damage nearby satellites.
Without firing a rocket, the researchers say, belligerents could alter debris-collision forecasts to cause direct harm to space systems.
“Cyber-ASATs are not merely a distant theoretical threat, but a real and present danger to the balance of power in space.”
Multiple threat vectors
Threats, however, can be hybrid, warns NYU-AD’s Pöpper.
“In reality, multiple threat vectors are often combined,” she tells KUST Review. “Hacking and spoofing are part of cyber anti-satellite weapons. We are dealing with whole infrastructures, so while spoofing satellite (GPS or other) signals typically happens during communication, hacking targets the satellites and satellite operation software, and cyber ASATs also encompass attacks (e.g., exploiting vulnerabilities) on ground control systems.
“Successful attacks can disrupt satellite communications, compromise control systems, manipulate data, and even disable satellites, potentially leading to loss of control, compromised missions, and significant disruptions to various sectors relying on satellite services.”
A good defense
So what are governments and businesses doing about the threat?
“There are a few defenses that can protect satellites — ranging from ‘bodyguard’ satellites (currently in the planning stage) that could accompany sensitive assets to simpler measures such as cyber defenses against hacking,” says space-security expert Suess.
Pöpper, meanwhile, sees three tracks of interest:
Develop and deploy secured space systems: “Recognize that space security is a real problem and thus support the development and deployment of secure space infrastructure, secure communication channels, integrity of satellite firmware and software, and satellite system hardening. There are many open research questions in this domain as well,” she says.
Collaborate and share information: “Share threat intelligence, best practices and lessons learned from previous cyber incidents to enhance the overall security of satellite systems.”
International cooperation and regulations: “Governments should collaborate internationally to establish common cybersecurity standards and regulations for space systems, promoting consistent security practices and enabling a coordinated response to cyber threats. I am aware that this can be a tricky ask beyond national boundaries, but the space industry in general has a long history of multi-national collaborations.”
His Excellency Dr. Mohamed Al Kuwaiti, head of cybersecurity for the UAE, also sees the need for governments to work with businesses and other stakeholders.
“Cybersecurity is teamwork,” he tells KUST Review, “and we have to involve everyone including government entities, industrial partners, academia and the community. That should be done at national and international levels.”
In the past few decades there has been a substantial leap in our understanding of how our solar system formed and how the planets came to be in the positions we see today.
Indeed, a bird’s eye view of our solar system reveals a number of defining characteristics that intrigue scientists. The inner part of our solar system is dominated by small “rocky” planets including Earth. As we move out we encounter the gas and ice giants. Jupiter and Saturn are mainly composed of hydrogen and helium (similar to the sun’s average composition), while the ice giants Uranus and Neptune show a high concentration of ices, or what scientists tend to call “volatiles.”
Nearly 4.6 billion years ago, a rotating nebula started to gravitationally collapse on itself, leading to concentration of materials in the center.
When seen from above, all planets orbit around the sun in a counter-clockwise orientation and in nearly circular orbits. Furthermore, almost all planets rotate around themselves from west to east, in what we call “prograde” rotation. Any valid scientific theory or a model for the formation of our solar system needs to address these collective properties of our planetary system. Planets also host a vast collection of moons: Small planets have few or no moons while larger planets have tens of moons on average. However, there are more pieces to the puzzle of our solar system!
As we move beyond Mars to Jupiter, we encounter small bodies that similarly orbit the sun, called the asteroid belt. And if we continue farther out beyond Neptune, we encounter an even larger collection of small bodies in what is called the Kuiper belt.
Scientists have built a solid model for how our solar system formed from a cloud of gas and cosmic dust called a nebula. Nearly 4.6 billion years ago, a rotating nebula started to gravitationally collapse on itself, leading to concentration of materials in the center. As gravity led to an increase in matter toward the center of the nebula, more grains and solid materials in that area collided and temperatures rose in the center of the nebula.
The International Astronomical Union has named an asteroid after Mohammed Ramy El-Maarry, director of Khalifa University’s Space and Planetary Science Center. Earlier known as 2002 CZ, it is now (357148) El-Maarry.
The hot center is where our sun was born. Furthermore, as mass concentrated in the center, the rotating nebula started to spin much faster, leading to a shift from a somewhat spherical cloud to a structure that would eventually become the “protoplanetary disk.”
In this disk, materials continued to merge with each other, forming larger blocks. The variations in temperature within the rotating disk are the main reason planets have different compositions. In particular, the inner part of the disk was too hot for ices and other volatiles to condense from a gaseous state into a solid state, so planets in the inner system are relatively devoid of such volatiles. We also know now that the planets orbit around the sun in the same direction because this was the direction of the original nebula’s rotation.
Small bodies are the remnants of this complex process. They are the spare “LEGO” parts of our solar system. When we study the asteroids, we gain more information about the physical and chemical conditions of the inner solar system, including Earth. Similarly, when we study ice-rich small bodies in the Kuiper belt and beyond, we gain more information about the conditions at the outer edges of the early nebula. The great thing about small bodies is that rather than travel long distances to study them, we can rely on them coming close to Earth’s backyard. But how does this happen?
Large planets, particularly Jupiter, have a massive gravity that occasionally pushes small bodies in the asteroid belt toward the inner solar system.
This creates the family of near-Earth asteroids that have been visited by numerous space missions. Such bodies may even penetrate our atmosphere and land on Earth as meteorites.
Small bodies can also offer viable economic prospects in the near future given the vast wealth of precious metals and ores they contain.
Neptune has a similar, yet weaker, effect and can attract bodies from the Kuiper belt, shifting their orbits inward till they get captured by the outer planets as moons, or upon encountering Jupiter in their journey inward undergo a shift in their orbit allowing them to visit the inner solar system as comets. These ice-rich bodies allow us to study the outer solar system without needing to go there. When these comets enter the inner solar system, their near-surface ice may turn from a solid to a gas state, lifting surface dust along the way and forming a bright “coma” around the body that can aid in its viewing. Scientists can use remote sensing techniques to measure the composition of the ices.
Small bodies are essential parts of the puzzle to help us better understand our solar system. Small bodies can also offer viable economic prospects in the near future given the vast wealth of precious metals and ores they contain. Near-Earth objects can also pose threats to human civilization if they are large enough and their orbits put them in a collision course with Earth. As such they are a target of planetary defense programs and constant monitoring by Earth-based telescopes. So don’t expect our interest in small bodies to dwindle any time soon.
Mohamed Ramy El-Maarry received his Ph.D. from Goettingen University in Germany. He is an associate professor of planetary geology at Khalifa University’s Department of Earth Sciences and the director of KU’s Space & Planetary Science Center.
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IMAGE: Darya Kawa Mirza
CAPTION: This photo might look a bit strange, yet those are the actual colors of the lunar surface (with a bit of a push to make them distinguishable and more visible). Those colors come from the minerals found there. Areas rich in iron, for example, have an orange tint, while areas rich in titanium have a blue tint. IMAGE: Ritesh Biswas
