“The West’s space postures will be increasingly challenged,” said Captain Marcel Janowitz, and intelligence officer with 7 Space Operations Squadron (7 SOps).
Janowitz, with Sergeant Anthony Rietta, the squadron’s electronic warfare and aggressor non-commissioned member, visited 14 Wing Greenwood January 31 – interestingly enough, in the days a Chinese high-altitude balloon was moving through North American airspace, having apparently crossed the Pacific Ocean, Alaska, parts of Western Canada; and then spending days moving across the continental United States. NORAD tracked it exhaustively from January 28, and the U.S. Air Force shot it down off the coast of South Carolina February 4. A second balloon was also on its way over Latin America in the same week.
“We have a lot to track,” Janowitz said, pointing to the 700 source notes in an open-source presentation for interested wing personnel, following a secure briefing to wing leadership that morning.
7 SOps falls under 7 Wing, a part of 3 Canadian Space Division, fully operational in 2022 and under the command of a face well known in Greenwood: former wing commander, then-colonel and now Brigadier-General Mike Adamson. 7 SOps is responsible for integrating space effects and options into operational planning.
The 7 Sops visit was not intended as a recruiting brief, but Janowitz and Rietta were interested in talking about branch opportunities: “We simply cannot get enough people in the door,” Rietta said. Primarily run by the Royal Canadian Air Force, space work is open to any relevant Canadian Armed Forces trade. “Talk to your career manager – space division positions are not commonly known.”
Rietta agreed many might wonder, “what can space do for me?
“People think it is one entity, but there are many elements,” he said, detailing missile warning, weather, satellite communications, surveillance, precision strikes, integrated surveillance and reconnaissance, position-navigation-timing, C3 systems and improvised explosive device detection. “There are lots of facets of space.”
With all that activity, in Canada and internationally, “space is getting congested,” Rietta said. “The pace at what countries are putting up assets, and who’s contesting space domain – even pushing other assets into ‘junkyard’ orbits – is growing. NASA used to be at the forefront but, now, almost every country has commercial ability to produce assets and the capability to get them launched.”
Janowitz said, in 2021, the United States spent $55 billion on civilian and military space programs. China spent $10.5 billion, and Russia spent $3 billion. In 2022, China and Russia signed a cooperation agreement to integrate a schedule of systems.
“That 5:1 ratio is not an indicator the US is ahead – they have to pay for open industry and unions. China is growing greatly, and Russia is a key player.”
Iran and North Korea are also in the space business. While Iran has a 50 per cent launch failure rate, its national space program has “a backlog” of assets to launch. North Korea has a state-run civilian agency administering its program.
“Military and civilian space services are not easily separated, as many governments rely on civilian systems to relay data, and civilian craft may not be clear military targets. Cyberattacks, electronic warfare, nuclear detonation and kinetic energy weapons are all space threats. A simple attack could affect a country’s space program for years, destroying infrastructure, disrupting telemetry, tracking and telecommunications; or killing technicians and analysts.
“Russia and China see western dependence on space technology and systems as a weakness: their goal is to narrow the gap, deny space and even the playing field.”
Anyone interested in 3 Canadian Space Division opportunities should speak with their career manager, look at the introductory course on the Defence Learning Network, and pursue the five-day course offered in Winnipeg.
DYK?
Sergeant Rietta and Captain Janowitz sprinkled their briefing with space-related information:
-A NASA space shuttle launch used to work out to $54,500 per kilogram (1970 to 2000). When SpaceX launched its Falcon 9 rocket in 2009 to reach the International Space Station, it worked out to $2,720 per kilogram.
-Space crafts, defunct satellites, debris as small as a bolt –r smaller – all float in space, creating potentially 50 collision issues a day. If there are 6,500+ satellites in space, 3,100 of them are inactive. Collisions with working satellites could affect communications, the environment and monitoring efforts on Earth.
-Earth-focused treaties and norms have not been fully tested in the space domain. Early treaties including space oversight are being outpaced by countries’ and commercial space reach.
-China launched eight assets the first week of January. It plans to launch 800 through 2023. “They hope to be first in space by 2045 and, at the rate they’re going, they can do it by 2030,” Janowitz said. A Chinese-only space station will surpass the International Space Centre this summer. The country plans a space-based solar power plant by 2050. China has assets in space that can move, move other craft and even grab them to put into unmanned space planes that return to Earth.
-Russia is the third-largest space power and, while it “supports agreements against the weaponization of space,” Janowitz said, “it does view space as a warfare domain. And, it has 60 years of experience. The Russian space industry is almost exclusively state-owned.”
