Mitigating Threats to Commercial Space Satellites

The space domain is transforming into an increasingly contested and congested environment. The President has referred to it as a critical warfighting domain and in response, the Department of Defense has recently established U.S. Space Command as a unified combatant command to employ space capabilities and lead space operations. In the private sector, we have seen investments in commercial space grow exponentially as advances in technology have sparked a renewed global interest in the final frontier. In the last decade alone an estimated 500 venture capital firms have invested in space, with approximately 20% making their first investments in 2018. A recent report by Morgan Stanley also cites, “the revenue generated by the global space industry may increase to more than $1 trillion by 2040.”