In Orbit: The European Union, Defence and Space Domain Awareness

CSDS POLICY BRIEF • 22/2023

By Daniel Fiott

07.07.2023

Following the March 2023 publication of the European Union’s Space Strategy for Security and Defence, the Union has moved into new conceptual territory. In thinking about how to ensure its security and defence in outer space, the Union has emphasised the importance of “Space Domain Awareness”. The meaning of this new term is not easily understood but it takes the Union beyond the monitoring and tracking of outer space for largely non-military purposes. As this Policy Brief shows, Space Domain Awareness is about fusing data for military and non-military threats across the cyber, air, land and maritime domains and on a 24/7 basis. Beyond just conceptual innovation, this Policy Brief highlights the policy implications of this new approach to space monitoring and tracking. In doing so, it features some of the political, industrial and military challenges now facing the Union in the area of security, defence and space.

CSDS Policy brief_2322.pdf (372.43 KB)

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