From 6 to 10 March 2023, the EU conducted the Space Threat Response Architecture (STRA) 2023 exercise at the European External Action Service (EEAS) Headquarters in Brussels followed by a table-top discussion in the Political and Security Committee.

The STRA exercise is a yearly exercise to test and enhance the EU´s response to threats to the systems and services deployed under the various components of the EU Space Programme. It builds on a scenario, which reflects the complexity of the current geopolitical landscape and emerging hybrid threats, ranging from cyber-attacks on space and ground segments to spoofing or jamming satellite signals, as well as disinformation campaigns.

During the STRA 2023 exercise, the EU´s space threat response mechanism was triggered by a cyber-security incident affecting Galileo. The incident was activated in EEAS HQ and involved key political, diplomatic, and operational actors including Member States, the EEAS, the EU Space Programme Agency (EUSPA/Galileo Security Monitoring Centre), the Commission and the Council of the European Union. Italy and Spain as Galileo host nations activated their chain of command, involving appropriate national capabilities to address the incident and providing support to digital forensics and critical infrastructure protection measures.

As a continuation of the STRA 2023 exercise, on 15 March 2023, the Political and Security Committee (PSC) played a table-top exercise on space threats for the first time in this kind of exercises. The PSC explored the EU response to an incident in space affecting EU satellite and the potential activation of the EU mutual assistance clause [article 42(7) TEU] for a space incident.

The Strategic Compass calls for the need to better secure the EU’s access to strategic domains such as space. These exercises help build a strategic culture of space security and defence, which will be key to implement the objectives of the recently adopted EU Space Strategy for Security and Defence.

The STRA 2023 exercise was organised by the EEAS in coordination with Member States, EUSPA and the Directorate-General for Defence Industry and Space (DG DEFIS) at the European Commission.

BACKGROUND

The EU is increasingly dependent on space-based assets and services for the functioning of its economy, its society and for security and defence. Russia’s unprovoked military aggression against Ukraine has emphasised the vulnerability of space services and infrastructures. Cyber-attacks, jamming and spoofing against Union space capabilities can have a critical impact on operation and services delivery but also political and diplomatic consequences.

Today more than ever, as highlighted in the Strategic Compass, the EU needs to be prepared for an increasingly contested space environment, marked by a wide range of threats, mainly targeting governments and institutions, including their critical infrastructures, and economies that rely on space services.

The Council Decision (CFSP) 698/2021 on the security of the systems and services deployed, operated and used under the Union Space Programme, defines the responsibilities of the Council and of the High Representative in the event of a threat to, or through, these systems and services. The Council just amended the Council Decision to extend its scope to the system and services to be deployed under the new IRIS² programme. The Council Decision stipulates that a yearly exercise should be organised on the implementation of the Decision. Before Galileo’s reach Full Operational Capability by 2024 and as part of the ramping up of Galileo’s security implementation and testing, the EEAS has planned a series of STRA exercises.

The exercises illustrate some of the issues that the recently adopted Joint Communication on the EU Space Strategy for Security and Defence intends to tackle. The Union intends inter alia to better mobilise relevant EU tools to respond to space threats by expanding the existing space threat response mechanism to all space systems and services in the EU, and to better detect and identify space objects through relevant national space commands, to characterise inappropriate behaviours in orbit. The new Strategy also calls for regular exercises in the space domain or with a space domain component, including to test and explore solidarity mechanisms.