Cooperation among the United States and its Allies and Partners in space is key to maintaining security across domains. As nations work to build their own space capabilities, collaboration among nations as well as industry is crucial, according to defense experts.
To achieve better interoperability and efficiency, NATO standards should take precedence, retired U.S. Army Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, former commander of U.S. European Command and NATO supreme allied commander Europe, said during a media briefing at the June 2025 Paris Air Show, according to National Defense magazine. “We’ve got to stay close to [those standards] because, otherwise, we just create systems that we then have to design some means of connecting them, which is traditionally the way we’ve done in the past,” Scaparrotti said. “Just to underscore the fact that we have a concept of operation within NATO, primarily, it’s multidomain operations, and we have standards with which to operate. We need to begin to enforce those across all of our nations.”
Emerging threats in space require Allies working together on a global level. Challenges include widespread jamming and spoofing of GPS signals in and around conflict zones, including near Russia and throughout the Middle East.
“Chinese and Russian satellites in low Earth orbit and geostationary Earth orbit continue to display more and more advanced maneuvering capabilities, demonstrating operator proficiency and tactics, techniques and procedures that can be used for space warfighting,” according to the Space Threat Assessment 2025 from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Russia has said it would consider commercial assets used by the U.S. military to be targets. “China and Russia, as well as, to a lesser degree, Iran and North Korea, are actively working to test new technologies and concepts of operations in space that have clear applicability and use for counterspace weapons capabilities,” the CSIS report said.
To counter these emerging threats, Allies can facilitate seamless collaboration among governments by leveraging open-systems architecture, Greg Ulmer, president of aeronautics at defense contractor Lockheed Martin, said during the Paris Airshow discussion. “As we consider the NATO enterprise and the INDOPACOM [Indo-Pacific Command] theater, we’ve got to take that united approach relative to the threat and how we respond as a collective against that threat,” Ulmer said. “I think that will always remain, and I think that will help drive that continued relationship and reliance on one another.”
One key component of achieving interoperability — in space and across domains — is information sharing. During the Space Foundation’s April 2025 Space Symposium at Peterson Space Force Base, Colorado, the U.S. signed bilateral agreements with Sweden and the United Kingdom committing to enhanced cooperation and information sharing in space.
While flying in Europe in the 1990s, “it was unbelievable how many people we couldn’t speak to because we had all individually bought different data links that had slightly different protocols,” Royal Air Force Air Marshal Paul Godfrey said during a roundtable at the Space Symposium, according to National Defense magazine. Godfrey is U.S. Space Force assistant chief of space operations for future concepts and partnerships.
“Interoperability is key,” he said. “You know that you’ve got the right kit that can talk to the right people, and you’ve got the right phone numbers and connections to the right space operations centers.”