Germany unveils lasers plan to counter Russia and China threats | EUROtoday

Germany is poised to take a position €35 billion (£30 billion) in its army house capabilities, encompassing spy satellites, house planes, and offensive lasers.

This bold spending plan is designed to counter escalating orbital threats from Russia and China, based on the pinnacle of the nation’s house command.

Michael Traut, who leads the German Space Command, revealed to Reuters that Germany intends to assemble an encrypted army constellation of over 100 satellites, generally known as SATCOM Stage 4, within the coming years.

Speaking on the fringes of an area occasion forward of the Singapore Airshow, Mr Traut indicated that this community would emulate the mannequin employed by the US Space Development Agency, a Pentagon unit targeted on deploying low-Earth-orbit satellites for communications and missile monitoring.

The potential funding follows current experiences of Rheinmetall participating in discussions with German satellite tv for pc producer OHB concerning a joint bid for an undisclosed German army satellite tv for pc initiative.

This growth additionally aligns with a broader European effort, as main house corporations Airbus, Thales, and Leonardo search to ascertain a European satellite tv for pc communications various to Elon Musk’s Starlink.

Mr Traut underscored that Germany’s vital funding in army house structure immediately displays a significantly extra contested house surroundings since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Berlin and its European allies, he stated, wanted to bolster their deterrence posture by investing not solely in safe communications but in addition in capabilities that might hinder or disable hostile house methods.

“(We need to) improve our deterrence posture in space, since space has become an operational or even warfighting domain, and we are perfectly aware that our systems, our space capabilities, need to be protected and defended,” Traut said.

Germany will channel funding into intelligence‑gathering satellites, sensors and systems designed to disrupt adversary spacecraft, including lasers and equipment capable of targeting ground-based infrastructure, Traut said.

He added that Germany would prioritise small and large domestic and European suppliers for the programme.

Traut emphasised Germany would not field destructive weapons in orbit that could generate debris, but said a range of non-kinetic options existed to disrupt hostile satellites, including jamming, lasers and actions against ground control stations.

He also pointed to so-called inspector satellites — small spacecraft capable of maneuvering close to other satellites — which he said Russia and China had already deployed.

“There is a broad vary of doable results within the electromagnetic spectrum, within the optical, within the laser spectrum, and even some lively bodily issues like inspector satellites,” he said.

“You might even go after floor segments of an area system with a view to deny that system to your adversary or to inform him, ‘If you do one thing to us in house, we would do one thing to you in different domains as effectively.’”