Wes Streeting should know the price of his space squadron - but proving value for money will be the real test

Asked on LBC how much Britain was spending on its new military space capability, the Defence Secretary admitted he did not have the figure – £7.8 billion, which Ferrari soon supplied – to hand. Strictly speaking, the exchange was slightly unfair: £7.8 billion is not the cost of Britain’s new No. III Space Effects Squadron, but the total amount the government plans to invest in space up to 2030. But Ferrari had hit on something that appears to have been lost in this conversation. We are measuring the wrong thing.

Of course, taxpayers are entitled to know what defence costs. But the question that matters most is what Britain is getting for its money. Would we know if our satellites were under attack? Could we deter it? Could our Armed Forces continue to operate were a satellite to be jammed, damaged or destroyed entirely?

The disquieting fact is that, at present, our satellite infrastructure remains highly vulnerable. And what non-specialists may fail to realise is that society and our modern armed forces depend on that infrastructure daily. Satellites provide communications, intelligence, missile warning and navigation. Jam or disable these systems, as our adversaries will certainly attempt to do in a conflict scenario, and the effects are felt everywhere.

Whenever Russia has managed to degrade Ukraine’s positioning and communications systems, drones have become less useful, artillery has become less effective, slower and blinder because that critical infrastructure goes dark at entirely the wrong moment.

Officially, we have acknowledged this. Britain’s Strategic Defence Review, published in June, called for more resilience, redundancy and improved ‘space control’; the government’s new Space Strategy has promised an integrated roadmap for the technology Britain needs.

No. III Space Effects Squadron, announced this week, recognised that simply watching what happens in orbit is no longer enough. But the hard part comes next: defining and building the technological, doctrinal and legal roadmap our forces need to fight and win.

At present, we still rely on a relatively small number of important systems. Many of our satellites depend heavily on ground control. An adversary does not necessarily have to blow them out of the sky: jamming communications, attacking ground infrastructure or interfering with their sensors may be enough to degrade the military systems that depend upon them. For this reason, simply distributing the risk across a larger number of spacecraft – proliferation – will not amount to resilience. Of course the numbers matter, but if all of the satellites in a constellation can have their communications cut, then Britain will still have a system with a single point of failure.

What should we do instead? To simplify matters somewhat, we will need to place our satellites in different orbital regimes, using different communications links and ground stations. Those satellites will need to have the means to operate autonomously – in other words, to be able to spot threats, manoeuvre and keep working when they lose contact with the ground, and, where necessary, intercept threats, all with limited human control. Allied 'interoperability' is also critical; we will need systems that can work together through shared standards, rules of engagement, command structures, and doctrine. None of this will be cheap, but war is far more costly.

The government has promised a roadmap for military space. Good – but let’s put a date on it. Give satellite protection its own budget line and its own criteria for success. How quickly can we spot a threat? How quickly can we respond? How much of the system can carry on working if an enemy attacks its satellites, communications links or ground stations? These are the questions we must be asking, and the next time a minister is pressed on what Britain spends on military space, he or she should be able to provide those answers. Then, perhaps we will be on our way to having a space system that can take a hit and hit back, that is how deterrence works.

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Graeme Ritchie is CEO of Shield Space.

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