The Small Satellite Symposium was held this week at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. This annual confab brings together the space communities' thought leaders in technology, finance, legal/regulatory, launch, and satellite constellation operations to discuss the latest and greatest issues facing the space industry.
For 2026, a significant portion of the conference addressed the growing militarization of space. Space is the new theater of war in the New Cold War. China and Russia are fielding ground and space-based weapons to neutralize the US’s advantage in satellite communications (StarLink), optical and radar reconnaissance, and future Golden Dome space-based anti-missile systems.
Everything from high-power lasers and RF EMP weapons to satellites that will mechanically grapple and remove US satellites from orbit is being developed. The threat extends to space-based nuclear weapons, to massively disrupt and destroy satellite communications constellations, like StarLink, Amazon LEO, and OneWeb.
What is the US and our Allies going to do to counter these threats? What technologies and tactics can the US use to protect our space assets?
I was invited to deliver a presentation on this very subject at the conference titled:
Hardening the Constellation: Protecting Smallsats in Contested Space
The 20-minute video lecture can be viewed HERE. I hope you enjoy it
If you’re not a fan of watching lecture videos, Abbey White, Staff Writer, SatNews wrote an insightful article summarizing my lecture titled:
The Benign Era is Over: Why the Commercial Space Sector Just Woke Up on the Front Lines
You read Abby’s article at the Sat News website, HERE
In Other News ..
Iran
On Friday, Al Jazeera, along with other major news outlets, reported on comments made by President Trump that the US is sending a second aircraft carrier to the Middle East as the United States increases pressure on Iran over its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile program. The President confirmed that USS Gerald R Ford would be leaving the Caribbean for the Middle East.
There is a “knock on effect” of theUS concentration of naval power to pressure Iran. These moves have significantly reduced the US deterrence posture in the Western Pacific, raising security concerns of US allies in the region, as reported by Defense Security Asia.
As I wrote in my 2026 Predictions Dystopic, the US should be concerned that China, rather than delaying action on Taiwan, could accelerate military activity in 2026. The Middle East Navy deployments have opened a tactical window for China. Taiwan could be lost before the US could redeploy enough carrier strength to meaningfully assist to repel and invasio or breaking a blockade
We will just have to see how this plays out for both Iran and Taiwan.
That’s it for this week …
Dystopic- The Technology Behind Today's News
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