At their summit in Washington DC this week, NATO member states pledged more than $1 billion to improve intelligence sharing from national and commercial reconnaissance satellites.
The agreement is a further step towards integrating space assets into NATO’s military commands. It follows the bloc’s adoption of an official space policy in 2019, which recognised space as a fifth warfighting domain alongside air, land, sea and cyberspace. The next step was the establishment of the NATO Space Operations Centre in 2020 to oversee space support for NATO military operations.
On June 25, NATO announced the creation of a “space branch” within Allied Command Transformation, which will monitor trends and integrate emerging capabilities into the alliance’s security strategy.
Breaking down barriers
The new intelligence-sharing agreement was signed on July 9 by representatives of 17 NATO countries, including the United States, in support of the Alliance Persistent Surveillance from Space (APSS) program. In a statement, NATO called the agreement “the largest multinational investment in space-based capabilities in NATO's history.”
The open intelligence sharing agreement comes against the backdrop of NATO’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Space-based capabilities, including battlefield surveillance and communications, have proven crucial to both sides in the war.
“The ongoing war in Ukraine underscores the increasing reliance of intelligence services on space data and assets,” NATO said.
The program will enhance NATO’s ability to monitor ground and sea activities with unprecedented accuracy and timeliness, the alliance said in a statement. The 17 parties to the agreement have pledged more than $1 billion to bring the program into a deployment phase over the next five years. Six of the 17 signatories currently operate or plan to operate their own national reconnaissance satellites, while several other countries are home to companies that operate commercial space-based surveillance satellites.
The APSS program will not involve the development and launch of NATO spy satellites. Instead, each country will work to share observations from its own government and commercial satellites.
Luxembourg, one of NATO's smallest member states, set up the APSS program with an initial investment of about $18 million (€16.5 million) in 2023. At the time, NATO called the program a “data-centric initiative” aimed at bringing together intelligence information for easier dissemination among allies and breaking down the barriers of secrecy and bureaucracy.
“APSS is not about creating NATO-owned and operated space assets,” officials wrote in the program's fact sheet. “It will leverage existing and future space assets in allied countries and connect them together in a virtual NATO constellation called 'Aquila.'”
Another element of the program involves processing and sharing intelligence information via cloud solutions and technologies. According to NATO, AI analysis tools will also better manage the growing volumes of space surveillance data and ensure that decision makers have faster access to time-sensitive observations.
“The APSS initiative can be seen as a game changer for NATO's intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. It will contribute greatly to increasing NATO's readiness and reducing its dependency on other intelligence and surveillance capabilities,” said Ludwig Decamps, Director General of the NATO Communications and Information Agency.
