What geopolitics for space exploration?

From the 1950s to the 1980s, the world witnessed Armstrong walking on the Moon, the launch of the first space station, the sending of the first probe to Mars, the first space shuttles, and the American flag planted on our lunar satellite. From the Sputnik mission to Apollo, through the Perseverance operation, the second half of the 20th century was marked by a “space race” in which the American and Soviet powers confronted one another. While the end of the Cold War led to a general loss of interest in the space domain, several factors have pushed major powers to significantly increase their space budgets since the beginning of the 21st century, for multiple reasons. What are the new stakes and actors of exploration and conquest of this highly symbolic domain? Are we witnessing a space race 2.0? And what will its consequences be?

A space race 2.0

Isabelle Sourbès-Verger, Director of Research at the CNRS, notes both a quantitative and qualitative increase in the resources mobilised by international actors since the 2000s to obtain the status of a “space power” and join the very exclusive informal “space club” of states capable of launching their own satellites, which includes around ten countries. France, whose National Centre for Space Studies (CNES) is the largest contributor to the European Space Agency (ESA) thanks to European cooperation, ranks only third on the podium with a budget of €7.15 billion in 2022, behind NASA with €24 billion and the Chinese CNSA with €8.4 billion. Meanwhile, the Russian space agency Roscosmos, still capable of conducting launches, has seen its budget reduced to €2.5 billion since the beginning of the war in Ukraine. Beyond these giants, India, Japan, New Zealand, Iran, and both North and South Korea are also capable of conducting space launches. The balance of power remains uneven. In 2019, out of 102 orbital launch attempts, China, the United States, and Russia accounted for 84%, compared to 8% for Europe, 6% for India, and 2% for Japan.

Space politics and economics: prestige and resources

From its symbolic dimension to its very tangible advantages, the reasons behind the renewed interest in space are multiple. On an ideological level, space represents a showcase of a nation’s political power, allowing it to justify before the world—through its technological capability to access this domain—the dominant position of its political and social model.

In terms of resources, space exploration promises the creation of a profitable industry and economy. As early as 2009, the Chinese probe Chang’e 1 confirmed the presence of Helium-3, a resource with high energy potential, on the Moon. More broadly, space is rich in minerals and rare earths. Mars contains reserves of copper, nickel, platinum, and iron, while asteroids orbiting nearby planets have proven rich in gold, rhodium, and cobalt. The concentration of rare metals there can be up to 100 times higher than on Earth. The space market could thus represent more than $100 billion for industry by 2050. Asteroid Mining Corporation, Planetary Resources, and Deep Space have already begun developing machines capable of extracting these resources.

Military stakes, intelligence and observation

While space can serve as an alternative means to connect the world—India, for instance, plans to develop its satellite network to extend internet access to its population—it also represents a major military stake. Control of outer space enables the deployment of a wide range of military and strategic capabilities. From satellite navigation to ballistic missile detection, including drone and missile guidance, observation, interception, and communication, these tools play an increasingly central role in modern military arsenals and in GEOINT (“Geopolitical Intelligence”). Each power operates its own system. The American GPS, Russian GLONASS, Chinese BEIDOU, and European GALILEO divide the world’s territories and borders among them.

Space as a reflection of terrestrial geopolitics

After the bipolar rivalry of the 1950s, new axes of rivalry and cooperation emerged on Earth and beyond. From the day after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the diversification of international actors was accompanied by the development of multilateralism in space, logically reflecting the state of terrestrial geopolitics. The importance of Japanese, Indian, Korean, and Iranian space programmes is proportional to their influence on the international stage. The launch of the Emirati space probe “Hope” into orbit around Mars illustrates the UAE’s rising power.

On Earth as in space, Europe’s difficulties stemming from the multiplicity of its actors remain the same. The €11 billion in budgets spread across the French CNES, the European Space Agency, European space projects, various satellite constellation cooperations, and different national initiatives hinder significant progress—progress that greater centralisation might facilitate. Russia, for its part, looks increasingly less toward the sky. While it retains a key role within the ISS and at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, which it will administer until 2050, its most recent advances are marked by absence, raising concerns about its decline, especially in light of China’s meteoric rise.

Future theatre of sino-american competition

With an annual budget of $50 billion in 2019, the United States remains the master of space, the only country capable of extensively using space for military purposes, notably through the creation of the US Space Force under the Trump administration. However, through method and efficiency, China’s $10 billion budget has enabled Xi Jinping to close the gap. In September 2011, Beijing launched Tiangong-1 (“Heavenly Palace 1”), its first prototype space station. On 3 January 2019, it announced that it had succeeded in germinating cotton seeds on the Moon, and in 2020 it became the second power to plant its flag on the Moon using a robotic mission.

The joint Sino-Russian project for a lunar station directly competes with the “Lunar Gateway” initiative launched under Trump and confirmed by Biden, which aims to install a station in lunar orbit in cooperation with Canada and Europe. The “Artemis” programme, launched on 16 November 2022, replaces the abandoned NASA “Constellation” project and plans to return an American astronaut to the Moon by 2025. While the Moon is the epicentre of Sino-American competition, both powers are already looking beyond. In February of last year, two American and Chinese rovers landed on Mars within months of each other to study its surface. China’s 2022 space white paper also plans the launch of a spacecraft to the planet in 2028 and the allocation of a colossal budget for the exploration of Jupiter and its oceans starting in 2029. China could thus join ESA’s JUICE mission and NASA’s “Clipper” mission.

Towards a Star Wars scenario?

Certain territories such as Ukraine, Taiwan, or Donbass are subject to geopolitical tensions and have witnessed armed confrontations. Some observers therefore worry about the consequences of disputes over space territory. In 2017, the close approach of a Russian satellite to the Franco-Italian satellite “Athena-Fidus” for espionage purposes was deemed hostile by France, which responded four years later by launching three intelligence satellites. In July 2020, Russia was again accused of testing weapons capable of targeting American and British satellites. Conflicts around space issues are likely to become more frequent; however, a full-fledged “Star Wars” scenario remains unlikely. The destruction of satellites generates debris with unpredictable trajectories capable of causing significant damage. Conversely, the defence of terrestrial installations receiving satellite data will likely be strengthened given their strategic importance.

Exceptions of cooperation in the name of progress

International actors increasingly adapt their strategies to space-related challenges, sometimes demonstrating cooperation in the name of scientific progress. The ISS (International Space Station) brings together Americans, Russians, Canadians, and Japanese through an infrastructure worth $100 billion. Researchers predict a “prodigious decade” for the space sector, but the tenfold increase in objects in orbit by 2040 highlights the urgent need for regulation.

Pioneer fronts and the legislation of space

By 2022, the space race had clearly resumed, and in this competition—where the “winner takes it all” principle seems to apply—international actors increasingly question the legal governance of space and pioneer fronts: territories considered uninhabited, unoccupied, or inappropriate, coveted by one or more human societies for their space and resources. Since 1967, it has been forbidden for any actor to appropriate outer space. The “Outer Space Treaty,” signed by 132 countries, prohibits any claim of sovereignty and is intended to keep space open to all. Some countries, such as Luxembourg or the United Arab Emirates with its 54 legislative articles, have already established precise space regulations. However, by signing the “Space Act” in 2015, the Obama administration withdrew the United States from the international agreement, allowing American companies to appropriate and sell resources extracted from space.

The privatization of space

The question of space privatization is one of the major issues of the coming decade. The involvement of private companies in the space sector is not new—Boeing and Lockheed Martin, NASA suppliers for over 50 years, attest to this. What is new, however, is the emergence of private actors seeking to impose their own vision of space and possessing the means to do so. Like many other domains, space is gradually moving beyond institutional rivalries to become a battleground for powerful global private capital. The term “New Space” refers to this entrepreneurial phenomenon. SpaceX and Starlink of billionaire Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, and Virgin Galactic are among its main actors. Among the projections of these entrepreneurs in this increasingly less public domain are high-speed internet distribution projects, orbital mesh networks that could reach 40,000 satellites by 2023, and short-term goals of space tourism, such as SpaceX’s initiatives or Jeff Bezos’ “Kuiper” project.

Increasingly powerful, private actors solicit, collaborate with, and influence institutions. SpaceX’s Crew Dragon rocket recently launched on a commercial mission organised by the startup Axiom Space, which plans to create a hotel connected to the ISS by 2024. The funding of the Israeli company SpaceIL’s lunar mission by SpaceX in 2019 also raises questions about institutional independence. Even more striking, in 2019, Starlink’s refusal to alter its satellite’s trajectory to avoid a European Space Agency satellite—forcing the latter to manoeuvre urgently—perfectly illustrates the growing influence, if not dominance, of the private sector.

The future of the space domain

As a reflection of terrestrial geopolitics in its actors, rivalries, and stakes, space is also emerging as a future arena of economic competition. Like all new strategic domains—such as emerging technologies or climate issues—the absence of regulation may ultimately seal the dominance of the power best able to exploit it, particularly in strategic fields such as defence, aeronautics, launcher-specific technologies, surveillance, and orbital systems.