View Featured Space Threat Assessment 2025 By Clayton Swope, Kari A. Bingen, Makena Young, Kendra LaFave PublishedApril 25, 2025 Welcome to the 2025 Space Threat Assessment by the Aerospace Security Project. This resource for policymakers and the public leverages open-source information to assess key developments in foreign counterspace weapons. Drawing on eight years of collected data and analyses, this report describes trends in the development, testing, and use of counterspace weapons and enables readers…
View Featured Space Threat Assessment 2024 By Clayton Swope, Kari A. Bingen, Makena Young, Madeleine Chang, Stephanie Songer, Jeremy Tammelleo PublishedApril 17, 2024 Welcome to the seventh edition of Space Threat Assessment by the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). For the last six years, CSIS has used open-source information to produce an annual assessment of threats to U.S. national security space systems posed by foreign government capabilities. Each report in this series catalogs yearly trends, uses, and advancements of…
The Future of Military Power Is Space Power By Clayton Swope PublishedApril 10, 2025 Released on April 4, 2025, the Space Force Doctrine Document 1 (SFDD-1) articulates the raison d’etre and establishes a common lexicon for U.S. military space power. It spells out the what, when, where, why, and how of the Space Force and its role in the joint force today. But there is also a need to look well beyond the present, using as much…
Next Steps for the U.S.-Japan Space Alliance By Sean Wilson, Clayton Swope PublishedApril 10, 2025 Japan’s heavy investment in space capabilities, coupled with the importance of space in supporting U.S. power projection in the region, has contributed to space becoming a strategic pillar of the U.S.-Japan alliance in recent years. The importance of the bilateral space partnership was highlighted recently in a joint statement from the February 2025 meeting of President Trump…
View U.S. Leadership in Lunar Spectrum Policy By Shayna Gersten PublishedMarch 17, 2025 Over the next decade, NASA and many commercial and international entities plan to send missions to the Moon. All of these missions will use spectrum to communicate with Earth. However, the international regulatory frameworks overseeing radio spectrum beyond Earth’s orbits (such as “lunar spectrum”) are underdeveloped, creating the potential for interference and disruptions to communications…
View Bringing the Private Sector to Space By Clayton Swope PublishedMarch 14, 2025 A steady cadence of speeches, strategies, reports, and recommendations from senior defense officials and experts extol the virtues of commercial space and urge increased use of commercial space services and products for national security. Yet the rhetoric does not match reality, in spite of meaningful progress made at the Pentagon, as commercial space is not being integrated and used at the scale needed to maximize…
View Missile Technology Control Regime Reform: Key Changes and Next Steps By Sean Wilson, Clayton Swope PublishedMarch 14, 2025 On January 7, 2025, the outgoing administration announced new U.S. policy guidance for implementing the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), which is a voluntary multilateral arrangement established in 1987 with the purpose of limiting “the risks of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (i.e. nuclear, chemical and biological weapons), by controlling transfers that could make a contribution to delivery…
Why Should the United States Prioritize Mars? By Clayton Swope, Clayton Swope PublishedMarch 14, 2025 During his inaugural address on January 20, 2024, President Donald Trump indicated he will prioritize U.S. space endeavors focused on Mars. While NASA has a long history of Martian exploration, including operating ongoing missions to the Red Planet, the president’s remarks suggest Mars may play a more central role in NASA’s agenda during the coming years. Unless accompanied by…
View Protecting the Homeland: The Iron Dome for America By Ioannis Nikas, Grayson Phillips, Clayton Swope PublishedMarch 5, 2025 On January 27, 2025, President Trump signed an executive order (EO) entitled “The Iron Dome for America.” Citing the potentially “catastrophic threat” from across the missile spectrum, its stated purpose is to “provide for the common defense of [American] citizens and the Nation.” In an evolving and diverse threat environment, this order calls for a…
Why Did South Korea Create a New Space Agency? By Jacob Bradley PublishedNovember 8, 2024 On May 27, 2024, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol announced the creation of the Korea AeroSpace Administration (KASA), which replaced the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) as the lead government organization for Korea’s space program and research activities.[i] KASA was created to reorganize disparate Korean agencies to foster greater efficiency and space innovation. Under…
