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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Sprache: Englisch
Comprehensive exploration of humanity's potential for criminal activities in outer space
Space Piracy: Preparing for a Criminal Crisis in Orbit is a forward-thinking resource that considers, analyzes, and provides solutions to the influence of the ignoble side of humanity in the realm of outer space, where potential for crime, corruption, piracy, and war increases as the exploitation of space as a commercial resource continues to develop. This book blends the authors' knowledge with that of subject matter experts to deliver a holistic understanding of criminality in space and help readers broaden their horizons beyond their own area of specialization.
Some of the topics explored in this insightful book include:
- Space hacking, from software, data, network, and hardware risks to existing cybersecurity standards and practices in space
- Criminal organizations that might pursue criminal activities in space, including cartels, kidnappers and devicenappers, and governments
- Laws and treaties relevant to space crime, such as the Communications Satellite Act and the Outer Space Treaty of 1967
Filled with practical, thought-provoking knowledge and guidance, Space Piracy: Preparing for a Criminal Crisis in Orbit earns a well-deserved spot on the bookshelves of professionals working in the best of humanity's institutions, including law and intelligence services, finance, insurance and risk management, corporations, and the sciences, who seek to combat what the worst of us may be dreaming up.
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Seitenzahl: 418
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025
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Table of Contents
Cover
Table of Contents
Title Page
Foreword
Preface
Introduction
Can You Actually Predict the Future?
Whom This Book Is For
Not Authoritative, by Design
Space Piracy, an Overview
Is This Book Necessary?
What's Inside
About Us
How to Read This Book
1 A Not-So-Unlikely Scenario Coming to the Space Near You
The Value of Scenario Planning
Some Scenarios to Ponder
Longer-Term Risks: Piracy on the Lunar Surface
How Likely Are These Scenarios?
Getting Inspired by Science Fiction
Takeaways
Notes
2 Learning from Piracy's Long and Rich History
A Brief History of Piracy
Piracy, Geopolitics, and Finance in the Rise of the British Empire
Piracy Today
Lessons to Be Learned from Old and New Modes of Piracy
The Bigger Picture: Do We Really Understand How Much of the World Works?
Takeaways
Notes
3 The Coming Multitrillion Dollar Space Economy
Near-Term Space Industry Market Projections
Longer-Term Space Industry Space Market Projections
The Space Industry Future
A Coming Great Power Struggle in Space?
From Space Colonies to…Space Nations?
The Time Horizon, and What It Means
Takeaways
Notes
4 Space Piracy: Overview of a Serious, Looming Threat
How Likely Is Space Piracy?
What Space Piracy Might Look Like
Space Warfare vs. Space Piracy
Privateering in Space?
The Four Spaces of Space Piracy
Who Will Be the Space Pirates?
Financing and EquippingSpace Pirates
Takeaways
Notes
5 Space Hacking: Current Realities and Future Lessons for Space Piracy
The Current State of Cyber Insecurity
How We Got Here
The Cyberattack Surface in Space
Space Hacking Incidents
Hacking a Satellite: Harder Than It Looks?
Differentiating Space Hacking from Space Piracy
Existing Cybersecurity Standards and Practices in Space
(Hopefully) Learning fromPast Mistakes
Takeaways
Notes
6 The Space Law, Policy, and Treaty Landscape
Laws and Treaties Relevant to Space Crime and Piracy
The Question of Sovereignty and Jurisdiction in Space
The Need/Temptation to Draw on Maritime Laws and Traditions
Maritime Insurance Practices and Their Applicability to Space
The Issue of Enforceability
The Potential for “Flags of Convenience” in Space
Takeaways
Notes
7 Criminal Organizations That Might Pursue Space Piracy
Criminal Cartels, the Leading Candidate for Space Piracy
Cartel-Driven Space Piracy Scenarios
Recruitment of Space Talent for Criminal Activities
Takeaways
Notes
8 The Potential Impact of Space Piracy on National Security
The Stakes and Parameters of National Security
The Current Role of Space in National Security
The Current Space Players Affecting National Security
U.S.-Centric vs. Globalized Perspectives on Space and National Security
Potential Bad Actors
Necessary Digression: The Future of Human Habitation in Space
National Security Scenarios Potentially Affected by Piracy
Evolving Space Alliances
Takeaways
Notes
9 Commercial Risks and Impacts of Space Crime and Piracy
Corporate Malfeasance
Shell Companies and False Fronts in Space
Money Laundering in Space
Mercenaries and Corporate/Colonial Exploits in Space
Space Banking, Piracy, and Cryptocurrency
Insurance and Risk Management in Space
Smuggling and Dark Fleets in Space
Takeaways
Notes
10 Policy Recommendations and Countermeasures to Mitigate the Risk of Space Piracy
Restating the Problem: The Limits to Current Frameworks and Institutions
Whose Problem Is This to Solve?
Start with Principles
Should Solutions Be Sui Generis or Adaptive?
Accept the Limits of International Law, but Plan to Act Despite Them
Borrow and Improve upon Maritime Law and Norms
Build the Foundations of Space Governance
Visualize and Operationalize a Role for the U.S. Military and Other Armed Forces
Solutions: The U.S. Space Force, Today and Tomorrow
Establish a U.S. Space Guard
Visualize and Operationalize a Role for the Intelligence Community
Takeaways
Notes
Conclusion: We Need to Talk
Recapping the Current Situation and the Risks of Space Piracy
Conclusions and Calls to Action
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Index
Copyright
Dedication
End User License Agreement
List of Illustrations
Introduction
FIGURE I.1 Dr. Wernher von Braun at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Hunt...
FIGURE I.2 Still frame from Fritz Lang's 1929 silent film
Frau im Mond
(Woma...
Chapter 3
FIGURE 3.1 Space industries are poised for growth across multiple sectors, w...
Chapter 5
FIGURE 5.1 Example of an HSN with virtualized components
Guide
Cover
Title Page
Foreword
Preface
Introduction
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
Conclusion: We Need to Talk
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Index
End User License Agreement
Copyright
Dedication
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SPACE PIRACY
Preparing for a Criminal Crisis in Orbit
Marc Feldman and Hugh Taylor
Foreword
I've spent the better part of three decades serving in the United States Air Force, and now the Space Force, working to deter conflict and ensure that the United States leads the world in space. The capabilities I have contributed to developing include space communication, space control, missile warning, intelligence/surveillance/reconnaissance, position/navigation/timing, weather, and access/mobility/logistics—the whole gamut. Success in these critical missions requires that we perform constant assessments of space-related threats.
For two decades following the Cold War, our threat analyses focused almost exclusively on perils naturally occurring in the space environment. Following the destructive Chinese antisatellite missile test in 2007, we pivoted to primarily focus on the threats from China and Russia, potential adversaries powerful enough to field their own space programs and weapons. Today the list of potential nation-state threats has grown, but we are still focused on deterring only sovereign states. This is about to change, in my view, and this book offers a glimpse of what is coming: irregular threats to space, especially crime and piracy.
The authors argue persuasively that space piracy is inevitable. As the costs and technical barriers to accessing space continue to come down, new wealth will be generated in space. At least some of that wealth will be able to be stolen or held hostage. Many state and nonstate actors will be capable of space piracy; some will inevitably act upon the opportunities they see.
As for the timing of this threat, we don't know when space piracy will become a real issue, but it will arrive at some point, perhaps sooner than we imagine. Some forms of space piracy are possible today, such as radiofrequency jamming and cyber hostage-taking. More stereotypical piracy, such as stealing precious metals mined from asteroids, may or may not be decades away.
Regardless, with such an uncertain timeline, now is the time to consider the threat and develop our strategies, tasks that require few resources. If developed and executed well, our strategy could very positively shape our future in space.
What should we do about the threat of space crime and piracy? In my view, we can deter and defeat space pirates, but not by doing nothing. The book thoughtfully outlines specific actions that can and should be taken today, specific actions for the intelligence community, Space Force, private sector, and other stakeholders. We need to build upon the existing international frameworks and institutions, such as the Outer Space Treaty and United Nations, and learn from the history of tackling piracy in other domains.
This is a thought-provoking book written for everyone who builds or relies upon space capabilities—and that is almost everyone. Every Space Force Guardian needs to read it so that we can contemplate and debate these critical topics. Just as the Navy counters piracy on the high seas, the Space Force is the United States' first and best choice for mitigating the threat of space piracy. To this end, the topic of space piracy needs more intellectual attention, discussion, and strategizing. Space Piracy is a tremendous first step in that direction.
—Col. Eric Felt, US Space Force
Director, Space Systems Engineering
Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Space Acquisition and Integration
Preface
When Neil Armstrong exited the lunar module on July 20, 1969, and became the first human being to set foot on the moon, he famously said, “That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” It was one of the most awesome and inspiring moments in history. Through remarkable feats of science and engineering, a man had ventured forth into outer space “for mankind,” coming in peace as a representative of the noble aspirations and capabilities of the entire human race.
Armstrong's sentiment also appeared in the groundbreaking Outer Space Treaty in 1967. It alludes to “the common interest of all mankind in the progress of the exploration and use of outer space for peaceful purposes.”
Today, after half a century of engineering breakthroughs, outer space is rapidly transforming into a commercial resource that is available for the use of all humankind. And, for better or worse, the broadening exploitation of space is exposing the ignoble side of humanity, with the potential for crime, corruption, piracy, and war in space. Indeed, this is already happening, though at a small scale. It's early in space's transition from noble representation of the best of humanity to a spectacle of its ignobility, but the moment has arrived, and we ignore it at our peril.
In this regard, science fiction has been well ahead of practical realities, depicting space as a place where anything goes, and anything will. George Lucas saw it coming in 1977, with the notorious bar scene in Star Wars giving us a preview of the dark underbelly of outer space, though Star Trek was already trafficking in space criminality a decade before. Reality is starting to catch up with science fiction, though, more quickly than many of us might imagine. As space becomes the site of wealth creation, a process that is already underway, it will almost certainly become the site of criminal activities, including acts of piracy.
Are we ready for piracy and crime in space? This is the theme we intend to explore in this book. For some, the idea of bad behavior in space is anathema, an affront to their sense that space should be a zone of human cooperation and heroic endeavor. For others, it has long been clear that space has the potential to become a lawless cesspool featuring the worst that humanity has to offer.
The time has come to reconcile these conflicting views. We will try, suggesting that the best of humanity's institutions, from the law to intelligence services, corporations, the sciences, and the military, can come together to combat what the worst of us may be dreaming up.
Introduction
In 1929, a 17-year-old German boy named Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun bought a movie ticket that would change his life and, eventually, the world (see Figure I.1). In a Berlin cinema, he watched what is considered the first great science fiction epic: Fritz Lang's two-and-a-half-hour silent film Frau im Mond (Woman in the Moon).
FIGURE I.1 Dr. Wernher von Braun at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, 1960.
Source: NASA
The movie tells the story of a visionary scientist, Professor Mannfeldt, who has a plan to send a rocket to the moon, where he believes there is a fortune in gold. A gang of thieves steals the professor's plans and threatens to destroy his mission if he doesn't cut the gang in on it. He agrees and sends his assistant, a woman named Friede, to the lunar surface, where she discovers breathable air and lots of gold. But the whole situation goes sideways, and the thieves try to hijack the rocket, destroying it in the process.
The depictions of the rocket inspired von Braun to devote his life to rocket science. In fact, they were so realistic that the Gestapo banned the film after von Braun commenced his top-secret work on the notorious V2 rocket, which devastated London in World War II. After the war, von Braun enabled the Americans to put a man on the moon with the Apollo missions—just 40 years after he watched Lang's film (see Figure I.2).
Even as space exploration was in its infancy, forward-looking people recognized that space could be a venue for piracy, a form of criminal mischief and war by other means that has existed for millennia. A 1952 Colliers Magazine article asked, “Who Owns the Universe?” and anticipated the threat of pirates operating in space. We're going to start answering that question in this book.
The current security conditions in space are ideal for piracy. Space systems are vulnerable. Great riches await pirates who can breach their poor defenses. The talent pool of available pirates is growing as nations with space expertise become economically and geopolitically unstable. Global criminal cartels allied with rogue state actors are poised to exploit these conditions for profit.
It is our contention that as the world embarks on lucrative ventures in space, it is a virtual certainty that space piracy will soon emerge as a major threat to their success. This may seem hard to believe, but the world has changed since the heady days of the Apollo program. The conditions that favor space piracy are on the rise.
While space exploration has long been the province of national governments, an honorable form of national service and international cooperation, space is rapidly transforming into a corporate free-for-all and playground for rogue states. Stakeholders will ignore these dramatic shifts in policy and ethics at their own peril.
FIGURE I.2 Still frame from Fritz Lang's 1929 silent film Frau im Mond (Woman in the Moon), juxtaposed with a photo of the German V2 rocket, shown at the Rocket Center of the Third Reich in Peenemuende, Germany and the poster for Fritz Lang’s 1929 silent film “Frau im Mond” (Woman on the Moon)”
Sources: Nataliia Budianska/Shutterstock and Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy Images
Today, nearly a century after Frau im Mond, space is home to a large, growing collection of industries. Corporations are following in the footsteps of Professor Mannfeldt. They are contemplating mining for gold on asteroids like modern-day incarnations of the professor. And, as the plot of the film suggested even in 1929, space was a rich venue for criminal conspiracies. Frau im Mond was disturbingly prescient.
It is our view that piracy in space will become a lethal, vexing, and technologically sophisticated aspect of the new space economy. It will force all the stakeholders in space to rethink how they operate in space. It will also lead to a reckoning as to the efficacy of legal, military, and global enforcement bodies in dealing with crime, piracy, and smuggling in space.
With all of this in mind, let's begin.
Can You Actually Predict the Future?
Before we dig into the topic of space piracy, we feel a need to address a question that has come up multiple times in the process of writing this book. That is, “Who are you to imagine that you can predict the future?” It's been asked more politely than that, but the gist is the same. This book anticipates events that have not yet occurred, though there have been some incidents that show clear signs of what's coming. Who are we to prognosticate?
This is indeed a problem. Serious people don't consult crystal balls and expect to be taken seriously. Only a charlatan would predict the future, right? The answer is yes and no. Yes, making guesses about what is going to happen next year, or in 20 years, requires an admission, up front, that you could be wrong, and probably are. And yes, only a charlatan would make a claim like, “Tomorrow, the Dow Jones will go up 102 points.”
At the same time, many of us, including a lot of highly paid and very serious people will say things like, “If the Federal Reserve raises interest rates next week, there is a high probability that the Dow Jones will go down.” That is a prediction of a future event that is based on past experience. It is not absolute. Rather, it is framed in terms of probability. In this sense, you can predict the future.
We feel comfortable predicting that piracy and other forms of mass criminality will arise in space as the sector grows more commercialized. Like the stock analyst who expects the Dow to drop if interest rates go up, we too anticipate that criminals will target rich space assets based on past experience. In our view, just as pirates over millennia have tried to seize ships carrying valuable cargoes when they transited narrow sea passages, so too will space pirates attempt to hijack space riches when they have the opportunity. This is not a fanciful guess. It's a prediction with a high probability of coming true.
Furthermore, if we take a step back from this immediate topic, we can see that predicting the future is the foundation of much policy planning. The Pentagon, for instance, strategizes, recruits, and spends based on future warfighting scenarios. Does the Pentagon know for sure that Country A is going to attack Country B, drawing the United States into the conflict? Of course not, but they have to plan for that scenario. We have military units formed and ready to address conflicts that have only a probability of occurring.
Whom This Book Is For
Who should read this book? In our writing process, we have spoken with many truly impressive people who have much more specific knowledge in their areas of specialty than we do. Our intention is not to replicate their entire expertise here. Indeed, each of these people could write their own books, and several have. Instead, our approach is to be integrative. The book blends our own knowledge with that of our subject-matter experts.
This book is for anyone who wants to gain a broader understanding of the potential for space piracy and crime than they already possess. If you're from the finance field, for example, you will gain insights into the geopolitical aspects of space piracy from this book. If you're from the world of intelligence, you may learn a thing or two about space insurance, and so forth. Our goal is to broaden your horizons with a (we hope) insightful overview of the subject.
Not Authoritative, by Design
This book is not authoritative in nature. That's on purpose. For one thing, it's hard to be authoritative on a topic so speculative. More importantly, dealing with space piracy is by necessity a process that has to involve experts from a range of disciplines. There are no individuals who can be authoritative about space piracy. The subject is too multithreaded, too integrative for that, at least in the present. As time goes on, we may see space piracy experts, people who can speak with authority on the topic. Today, however, our goal is to introduce the full breath of subjects that come under the rubric of fighting space piracy and initiate the interdisciplinary dialogues that will ideally make progress on this serious issue.
Space Piracy, an Overview
What do we mean by space piracy? A simple answer is robbery or hijacking of objects of value in space, akin to piracy on the high seas. Just as pirates board oil tankers off the coast of Africa and hold them for ransom, we envision space-based pirates hijacking space cargoes and demanding payment to set them free.
The specifics of how space piracy would work remain to be seen, but in all probability, space piracy will be significantly more complex than piracy at sea. For one thing, space piracy requires the use of costly, sophisticated space equipment. The barriers to entry are higher in space than they are on the world's oceans.
Space piracy will also probably involve the use of robots or other automated technologies to perform many of the acts of piracy. Human space travel is rare and very expensive. Though it may be entertaining to imagine a Johnny Depp character swashbuckling on the lunar surface, the greater likelihood is that someone on Earth will direct a robot to hijack the item of value and hold it for ransom.
Additionally, space piracy may encompass criminal acts that take place on Earth. This might mean hijacking launch stations and satellite uplink stations. In fact, in our view, space piracy could take place across at least four different kinds of space, including outer space, cyberspace, terrestrial space, and virtual/AI-generated space.
A useful definition of space piracy might also include a broader range of criminal activities, analogous to those that take place at sea today. For example, smuggling, which is not piracy per se, falls into a comparable zone of law enforcement (or lack thereof). Similarly, trafficking in sanctioned goods, a la today's Russian “Dark Fleet” oil tankers, could have a corollary in space. Such acts trigger the same questions of space sovereignty, space law, and space policy as space piracy. For this reason, it makes sense to include them in our analysis.
Is This Book Necessary?
The other question we've been asked a few times is “Why are you writing this? The problem doesn't exist yet.” That's a fair question. The world is experiencing plenty of real problems in the current moment. Why worry about something that hasn't happened?
We should be worrying about space piracy right now. For a reference point, take a hard look at the state of maritime piracy. You will see a criminal problem that lacks effective solutions. There are myriad reasons for this, but the most serious issues have to do with a lack of a coherent body of law or policy to rein in piracy on the high seas. Many of the same problems exist in space.
Without action, space pirates will have an open field for the most outlandish and costly criminal activities—if we don't prepare to combat them. The ongoing disruptions by nonstate actors like Yemen's Houthis, who are wreaking havoc on world shipping, further underscore the problems that come from being unprepared to deal with irregular and asymmetric adversaries.
The other question that comes up is “Why now?” Space commerce is in its infancy. The kind of high-value space assets and industries we contemplate in this book are decades, if not centuries, in the future. Why deal with this issue now? Isn't there plenty of time to prepare?
Yes and no. We needn't rush. Figuring this out could take a few years, but now is actually the ideal time to start preparing for this coming criminal crisis in space. We have several reasons for taking this stance. For one thing, bad policies tend to harden and become difficult to change. We see this with maritime piracy, where centuries of maritime law have created a virtual straitjacket for shippers and law enforcement agencies that want to fight piracy. If we want to avoid such an outcome in space, we need to start figuring out better policies today.
Cybersecurity offers another cautionary tale. The world is in the midst of a massive cybercrime wave that costs at least $200 billion a year to deal with, and the results are pretty abysmal. Computer systems remain insecure, despite the fortunes being spent to protect them. The current cyber disaster is the direct result of bad decisions made about computer and network security 60 years ago. At the time, few people envisioned a global network connected to billions of personal devices.
It would have been good if they had, because they could have designed more security into the standards and products we use today. But, they didn't, and our data is vulnerable to breach every day. With this lesson in mind, we should look at space technology and policy with a similar eye to futuristic crime. What can we design more securely today to avoid a criminal catastrophe in 50 years?
Another question that we've encountered is “Does it matter?” The basis for this question is that piracy is a fact of life on the high seas, but life goes on. The world's shipping lanes and supply chains all function, with some allowance for losses due to piracy. Space industry, too, would probably survive piracy, so why bother with it? It's a good question, but in our view, a better question to ask would be “If we can avoid a major problem, why hesitate?” Why ignore a threat that will surely have an impact on space commerce, a threat that could mask hostile action by geopolitical adversaries? The technology used by space pirates will probably be more lethal than that used by today's sea pirates. The problem is at least worth a serious look in the present day.
If the time horizon bothers you, consider the Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I. It's been 104 years since the treaty went into effect, and the world is still convulsing from its impact. The endless wars in the Middle East are but one example of how a 104-year-old document set massive, intractable conflicts into motion.
The decisions we make about space policy today will have ramifications for hundreds of years. It's on us to gather our wisdom and develop policies, legal frameworks, and military/intelligence organizations that can keep space safe from crime and piracy. It's a big responsibility, but we think we're up for it.
What's Inside
Our goal in this book is to introduce the idea of space piracy, describe how we think the phenomenon will occur, and then offer some suggestions for mitigating the risk. We refer to our content as “speculative nonfiction.” We start by sharing some potential space piracy scenarios in Chapter 1, which we have written in a second-person “this is happening to you” voice to make the risks and impacts of space piracy vivid to you, the reader. We cover possible space piracy scenarios that could take place today, as well as in the future. Chapter 1 concludes with some thinking about the likelihood of these scenarios becoming realities.
In Chapter 2, we digress into a brief history of piracy, starting with piracy in the ancient Mediterranean Sea and continuing up through the “golden age” of piracy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. We define and discuss the respective stories of privateers, who were given “letters of marque” by their monarchs to plunder enemy vessels, and buccaneers, who simply stole to get rich.
We go into some detail on the history of piracy because we believe the past is prologue. The same kinds of forces and power vacuums that led to widespread piracy in the past are looming in the future of space. The old piracy provides a great platform to look at piracy as a tool of geopolitics, and several other important lessons about how the world actually works, versus how we want or think it works.
We continue from there in Chapter 3 to an analysis of the emerging multitrillion-dollar space economy. This is a necessary part of the story, because if there isn't going to be any wealth in space, there will be nothing to plunder. We look at the near-term market for satellite industries and related fields like in-orbit servicing. We explore the potential for lunar industries, including lunar mining and the use of the moon as a platform for launching large-scale space missions of all types.
After laying out the tradition of piracy and discussing how it is endemic to the human condition, Chapter 4 gets down to defining space piracy in more detail. We offer potential structures of space pirate organizations and how they might operate. This includes a look at some of the leading criminal organizations, such as the major crime cartels. These groups have the money and organizational cohesion to pull off crimes in orbit. This chapter also differentiates space privacy from space warfare. It considers the potential for privateering in space.
Chapter 5 devotes itself to space hacking. We felt this subject deserved a significant degree of attention for several reasons. For one thing, space hacking is occurring today, and it is arguably the first budding of what will become a much larger space pirate enterprise as the future unfolds. Additionally, given that space vehicles are platforms for computer technology, their vulnerabilities are worth exploring as a way to get a better sense of how space commerce can be disrupted by piracy.
Chapter 6 takes on space law, policies, and treaties. This is a mammoth topic that is central to the entire discussion of space piracy and crime. Entire books have been written on this, so we're just scratching the surface. Nevertheless, we endeavor to give you as full an understanding as possible of the existing legal frameworks in space, as well as their limitations. Space is a “commons,” similar to the world's oceans. For this reason, as we explain, maritime law provides a roadmap for what law in space may look like as it evolves.
It's not a simple or soothing subject. There are a lot of dangerous blank spots in the space law landscape. Sovereignty is muddled. Enforcement is effectively impossible, even when the law is clear, and that's not very often. The maritime practice of “flags of convenience” will likely surface in space, further complicating efforts to define and enforce laws within space's meager legal framework.
Having discussed the underlying issues defining space piracy and law, the book then turns to its more specific potential impacts. Chapter 7 goes into greater detail answering a question posed in Chapter 4, which is “Who will be the space pirates?” We don't know, of course, but we will make some educated guesses. In our estimation, the best candidates for space piracy are the existing criminal cartels. They have the resources and strategic resolve to enter this expensive but lucrative field of crime.
Chapter 8 deals with the potential for space piracy and crime to affect national security. We will focus on the United States, but space is a factor in national security for every nation. We will also challenge some prevailing assumptions, such as that China looms as the aggressor in this context. This is not necessarily true, and it's valuable, in our opinion, to question the existing thinking.
We will explore the interplay between three interlocking realms that affect national security in space. They are sovereignty, criminal organizations, and private enterprises. The latter category may include corporations that either have or arrogate the ability to act as quasi-sovereigns in space like the British East India Company did in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Chapter 9 looks at space piracy and crime from the perspectives of business and finance. We will examine the potential for money laundering in space. We will also discuss the potential for legitimate businesses to become inadvertent vehicles for space piracy, such as through the work of corrupt insiders—but also the possibility that criminals will take over legitimate businesses and use them for space piracy purposes.
In Chapter 10, we answer the big question that should be on your mind as you read this book: “What can be done to prevent space piracy and crime from becoming a huge problem?” It is going to be impossible to stop all space crime, but we now have a chance to think through ways to mitigate the worst of it. Chapter 10 offers policy recommendations and countermeasures to reduce the impact of space piracy and crime. These include some legal recommendations, ideas for new space treaties, and suggestions for secure engineering of space technology.
Chapter 10 then takes policy ideas into the realm of practicality. Who will enforce these policies? As at least one former member of the intelligence community mused, “That is a really good question….” We believe that combatting space piracy and crime will only partly be a matter for law enforcement. The transnational and questionable sovereignty issues in space will disempower traditional law enforcement in space.
Rather, we think that intelligence services, along with the armed forces, will be front and center in dealing with space piracy. What this will actually look like remains to be seen, but the good and bad experiences in confronting maritime piracy offer some clues as to how this might be best be handled. We will also contemplate some novel organizational constructs for intelligence and alliances between previously disconnected entities that will serve the mission of fighting space piracy and crime.
Possible steps include empowering the U.S. Space Force to fight space pirates. Shoring up space cyber defenses and updating international treaties will ensure the United States has unfettered freedom to combat space piracy in space and on land. Going further, we discuss the development of novel public/private cooperation between intelligence agencies, private firms, law enforcement agencies, and others.
About Us
As coauthors, we come to this subject from different backgrounds. Marc Feldman has been active in the business of space since the 1980s, when he was instrumental in setting up Televisa's first satellite operations. Since that time, he has advised and invested in a variety of space ventures. He has also worked in the intelligence field. Hugh Taylor is a professional writer and author who has worked in the fields of enterprise technology and cybersecurity for over 20 years.
As we set about writing the book, we knew that we lacked deep knowledge in many critical subject areas. As a result, we sought the best people we could find in fields like space law, geopolitical strategy, and so forth. The book is intended to read, in part, as a series of conversations with top thought leaders who have unique perspectives and insights into their respective subject areas.
How to Read This Book
You can read this book front to back, and we hope you do. However, if you are already knowledgeable in one of our focus areas, you can read chapters selectively and come away—we hope—better informed. Our goal is to offer a stimulating dialogue, rather than attempt to be expert in all areas. Indeed, in our view, true expertise does not exist for this subject. In that context, we suggest reading the book in any way that adds to your understanding of the issues.
1A Not-So-Unlikely Scenario Coming to the Space Near You
Depiction of communication networks that link through space
Source: NicoElNino/Adobe Stock Photos
When we were kids, that distinctive voice of God that narrated every movie trailer used to thunder “Coming soon…to a theater near you…” before proceeding to thrill us with the latest coming attractions. As the worlds of space exploration and space industry continue to grow and evolve, it's useful to imagine some coming attractions, if you will. Not fun, exciting coming attractions. Rather, the stakeholders in the space sector would be wise to consider risks they may be facing in the near—and longer—term future. And, of course, some attacks are already taking place today.
The Value of Scenario Planning
We have backgrounds that include cybersecurity and intelligence. In both fields, scenario planning can be an effective way to model risk and think through issues of prevention, detection, and response. It also brings jurisdictional issues into sharp relief. The scenario building process lets you use your imagination to come up with possible avenues of attack and defense that may not come to mind if you're just looking at risk in an objective, academic sense.
Some Scenarios to Ponder
With that in mind, we will share a number of possible space piracy scenarios. Some are likely. Others are more far-fetched, though even those have instructional value. Some are presently occurring, while others are off in a future that's arriving a lot sooner than many of us want to admit.
Present-Day Risks: Pirates and Cyberattacks on Satellites
Space pirates tend to be highly ad hoc, improvisational groups that seek the easiest targets for plunder. In the space economy, the easiest and most accessible targets are the more than 8,000 satellites in orbit,1 a number that is expected to double in the next five years. These satellites, including commercial and military, provide various services to their customers, from commercial broadcasting and imaging/observation to missile tracking and shipping.
Satellite communications (satcom) plays a crucial role in many government, military, and commercial sectors. Pirates know they can potentially control satcom. The ability to disrupt, inspect, modify, or reroute traffic provides a valuable opportunity to perform surveillance or conduct cyberattacks. Terrestrial network infrastructures are subject to physical limitations and simply are unable to meet demand.
To fill this gap and provide improved performance, there are multiple satellite constellations orbiting Earth. These networks are responsible for, among other things, allowing people in remote locations to access the Internet, helping vessels and aircraft operate safely, and providing military and emergency services with critical communication links during armed conflicts or natural disasters. Sectors that commonly rely on satellite networks include aerospace, maritime, military and governments, emergency services, telecommunications, industry (oil rigs, gas, electricity), and the media.
Satcom infrastructure can be divided into major segments: space and ground. Space includes those elements needed to deploy, maintain, track, and control a satellite. Ground includes the infrastructure required to access a satellite repeater from Earth station terminals. Earth station terminals encompass the equipment located both on the ground and on airplanes and ships, meaning that this segment includes air and sea. Communication within space infrastructure can be space-to-ground, ground-to-space, or space-to-space, that is, satellite-to-satellite.
The pirates will likely attack both the satellites directly and the ground/antennae segments. This threat went from theoretical to real in 2023. ORBCOMM, an American satellite telecommunications and logistics company, revealed that a ransomware attack had disrupted its trucking fleet management systems. Customers were unable to use ORBCOMM's products, such as software that enabled the tracking of inventory in transit.2
The way the attack took shape is worthy of attention in the context of space piracy. The cybersecurity firm Cybersixgill detected ORBCOMM portal credentials advertised on a popular cybercrime marketplace. Cybersixgill investigators found credentials for what appear to be ORBCOMM's internal portals for sale on the site. Space hackers will likely use similar criminal marketplaces to buy and sell tools required to attack space assets.
Telecommunications Breach
Imagine that you run a major telecommunications business that relies on communications satellites to transmit data across the globe. While you may think of them as space hardware, in reality they are platforms for software that happens to run in space. They are connected to terrestrial computer networks via a radio link.
Like any other network-connected computer running software, your satellites are vulnerable to cyberattack. Your security team has assured you that the software that runs the satellite is protected by firewalls, access control solutions, and other various countermeasures. It better be, you think to yourself. The thing cost millions of dollars to build and launch.
So it is with some surprise that your chief information security officer (CISO) requests an urgent meeting with you. When? Now. Right now. Okay, you say, but this better be important. Before she arrives in your office, you wonder if your billing system has been breached, or some other relatable IT disaster that will cause embarrassment and cost money to fix, but it won't threaten the operations of the business for very long.
That's not the problem, your CISO explains. It seems that hackers have breached the satellite's “command-and-control” (C2) module and are threatening to instruct the satellite to end its orbit and enter Earth's atmosphere, where it will burn up. That is, unless your company coughs up a $50 million ransom, payable in Bitcoin, to make them go away.
Who are they? Well, it's impossible to know for sure, your CISO tells you, but their digital “attack signature” suggests that they are a criminal gang in Russia that operates with the permission of, or even at the direction of, the Russian government and its intelligence services.
Should you pay the ransom? A quick call to your cyber insurance carrier tells you that you're on your own in this mess. Your IT department leadership tells you that the attackers have changed the passwords on the satellite's C2, so they're locked out.
You call your golfing buddy who knows someone at the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ). “We need to nail these guys,” you tell him. “Good luck with that,” he replies. As Robert Mueller found when he went after Russian hackers who interfered in the 2016 presidential election, the DoJ can indict criminal hackers who live outside the United States…and have absolutely no impact on their ongoing activities. As long as they don't travel to the United States, they're free to keep hacking our systems at will.
It looks like you're going to have to pay off the space hacking pirates. The problem with this approach, aside from losing $50 million, is that you have no guarantee they'll honor their side of the bargain.
Broadcasting Disruption
If you were the head of broadcast operations for a major cable channel, how would you feel if your channel went off the air for 60 seconds, with no explanation? You'd be in a panic, probably, worrying that your job was on the line as you scramble to figure out what happened so you can explain it to the chief executive officer (CEO), who will be calling you in any second.
The timing of this outage could not be worse. In 24 hours, your channel will soon be airing a massively popular sporting event. The audience will be in the tens of millions. Your channel is poised to rake in hundreds of millions of dollars in ad revenue. If you cannot guarantee a smooth broadcast, you'll be dusting off your résumé in no time.
The good/not good news is that you quickly get an explanation, but it's not anything you're going to feel comfortable sharing with the CEO. Space pirates send you an email describing how they just blacked out your channel. It seems they used a satellite they built and launched via contract. They moved their satellite into position next to yours and jammed its signal. They can do this anytime they want, and there's nothing you can do about it.
After this demonstration of their ability to block the signal, they demand a huge ransom to power down their satellite. If the demand is not met by the next day, all transmission from the satellite will cease. They could even demand a recurring payment, because, for the time being, their satellite is right next to yours, and there is no law enforcement agency or branch of the U.S. government that can do much about it for at least a year, if ever. What can you do about this threat, other than pay the ransom?
An incident of this kind featured into U.S. Air Force Major Andrew Emery's Air University PhD thesis in 2013. In his hypothetical example of space piracy, a nanosatellite moves toward a commercial satellite and “begins broadcasting noise on the uplink frequency of the commercial spacecraft, effectively jamming its target's ability to receive further commands from the ground.”3
As he further explained, the relatively close range of the nanosatellite means that it can jam its target using only minimal power. The owner of the commercial satellite receives a ransom demand: “unless the company pays the ransom, the offender will continue to hold the company's spacecraft hostage…” Without the ability to upload new commands, the company is at risk of being unable to fulfill its obligations to customer requirements.
Emery bolstered his thesis with a reference to the economic costs of XM Radio's 2007 service outages. The broadcaster went down for 24 hours due to technical problems. Referring to reporting in USA Today, Emery stated, “With over eight million subscribers at the time, had each requested a refund of a single day's service it would have cost the company almost $8 million in lost revenue.”
Now, you're probably thinking…pirates building a satellite? It doesn't square with your perception of pirates. Aren't pirates a bunch of impoverished desperados zooming around the Horn of Africa in speedboats? Aren't they guys who look like Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean—zany characters with cutlasses and parrots on their shoulders?
Not always. As history and the present day make clear, pirates can operate in highly sophisticated entity structures. They can mask their true intentions as they construct expensive crafts and organize large groups of well-trained operatives. They may even have nation-state backing, or the support of unacknowledged but nonetheless powerful and well-organized nongovernment groups.
Yes, building a satellite and contracting for a launch are big-ticket propositions, but costs are dropping rapidly with nano satellites and advances in rocketry. The payoff is certainly there. If pirates can pull off their threat, they could earn back their investment many times over.
Threats to Commercial Shipping
You keep an antique telescope pointed out the window of your office, which overlooks a major European port. Two centuries ago, this telescope was the only way that the harbor master could tell if a ship was coming into port. A century ago, it was Marconi wireless transmissions from ships that let the port know they were inbound. Today, you have a large flatscreen monitor that shows the positions of dozens of ships as they make their way in and out of the port. It's a satcom display.
You run the port. It's a big job, but you have the assistance of some sophisticated technology. There are more than 50,000 ships at sea or in port at any time. Most vessels have satcom links that are essential to the ship's operations. These satcom links are used to track the status and condition of container ships while in transit. This is especially important when transporting sensitive goods like munitions and hazardous chemicals.
Then, without warning, your satcom display goes black and comes back to life a second later showing just a Jolly Roger skull and crossbones that alternates with an animated video of a gorilla giving you the finger.
This must be a joke, right? You hope it's a joke, something that someone on your team thought would be funny but isn't. You charge out of your office and see, to your horror, that every satcom screen in the place is showing the same animation.
Your phone rings. The caller's voice is distorted by a digital filter. The demand is easy enough to hear, however: you'll be getting instructions by email that describe how your firm, which runs the port, will transmit a hundred million Euros worth of Bitcoin to a crypto wallet owned by an international criminal gang. Then, the pirates will restore the satcom links.
A memo you scanned months earlier pops into your head. Your security team had warned about an event like this, but the matter had seemed so improbable that you let it go. Maybe you could convene a committee to explore the risk and develop an action plan during the coming fiscal year. Otherwise, you would just wait and hope for the best.
