Countries around the world are looking at space very differently than they did just a few years ago. Space has become operationally indispensable for military communications, ISR, navigation, missile warning and data transport. Since these capabilities are now essential to military operations, governments can no longer treat them as temporary programs. They must be funded and managed as enduring, critical infrastructure.
Driven largely by the introduction of low Earth orbit (LEO) constellations, this view of space as critical infrastructure has unleashed a new space race, with countries dedicating billions of dollars to build new platforms that increase their capabilities and resilience in space. This rapid increase in spending matters because it reveals a fundamental shift in how space capabilities are being procured, operated and integrated with other allied networks.
Moving in the same direction
In August, Canada’s Defence Investment Agency signed a C$2.3 billion contract with Telesat to provide secure Military Ka-band (Mil-Ka) Arctic connectivity to the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) under the Enhanced Satellite Communications Project – Polar (ESCP-P) program. The agreement is for a period of 15 years, inclusive of two 5-year options, that could extend its value to $ 2.7 billion. Telesat is immediately expanding its LEO constellation from 156 to 225 satellites, funded through milestone-based payments from the Government of Canada starting in the third quarter of 2026.
NATO has reached a similar conclusion at the alliance level. In July, eight member nations, Denmark, Canada, Finland, Germany, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Turkey, launched an initiative called HALO to link their individually operated national military satellites into one networked constellation. NATO’s own reasoning is that single-nation fleets are too vulnerable to jamming, cyberattacks, and physical threats, and too limited in coverage to serve the alliance well on their own. Consolidating them into a shared, resilient architecture solves a problem no single country’s budget could solve alone.
In an editorial published by The Washington Post ahead of a summit meeting in July, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte argued that a stronger European defence industrial base contributes directly to a stronger NATO. He highlighted the billions of dollars being invested in critical technologies such as space and the economic benefits these investments generate across allied nations.
The United States is running the same play through its own defense space programs. When the Space Force initially proposed eliminating funding for the Space Development Agency’s (SDA) Tranche 3 satellites, Congress restored it and added $1.2 billion in additional research and development funding. This effectively told the Pentagon that a proliferated low-Earth-orbit mesh network is now infrastructure worth protecting from budget cuts, not a discretionary program up for review.
The Space Force’s newer Space Data Network initiative goes further, folding the SDA’s Transport Layer into a single multi-orbit, hybrid military-commercial architecture built to serve everything from tactical communications to the Golden Dome missile defense effort.
It is worth noting that the government is treating satellite connectivity the way it treats a power grid or a highway system, as something to fund and maintain on an ongoing basis. Although these programs differ in scope and geography, they share a common characteristic: they fund space capabilities as long-term infrastructure designed to support future missions rather than fixed requirements. This is a marked departure from the traditional program-based acquisition model.
Funding space as critical infrastructure carries important architectural implications. Infrastructure is expected to remain relevant for decades, connect with external systems, evolve alongside changing technology and remain operational under adverse conditions. As governments make long-term investments in sovereign space capabilities, resilience, interoperability and multi-network integration become just as important as the satellites themselves.
Critical infrastructure requires interoperability and resilience
Critical infrastructure typically connects systems and networks rather than being self-contained. A highway, a major pipeline, and an electricity grid do not end at a state line. They interoperate with other systems in ways to ensure resilience and redundancy. By their nature, they are integrated with other networks and can be upgraded as needed. The same principles hold with space infrastructure.
Government agencies increasingly rely on satellite communications to support missions that span continents and involve multiple branches of service, allied nations, commercial partners and multiple network providers operating across different orbital layers. Interoperability is a prerequisite for mission success. If those systems can’t talk to each other, capabilities are undercut.
A single-network approach also creates a single point of failure. If one system is degraded, whether by jamming, cyberattack, bad weather, or a technical fault, users on that network have no fallback. A networked architecture that can route across multiple systems, orbits, and providers gives government users the ability to shift traffic when one path is compromised. This approach aligns with the PACE communications methodology (Primary, Alternative, Contingency and Emergency), which is built around layered redundancy and multiple communications paths.
Interoperability also provides network flexibility. Government missions change, procurement cycles are long, and technology advances quickly. A standalone system built around a single architecture is difficult to expand or reconfigure when new requirements emerge or new partners join. A networked architecture designed with interoperability in mind is better positioned to incorporate new capacity, new orbital layers, or new partner networks without requiring a complete system replacement.
A new reality in space
A pattern holds across these disparate, sovereign space programs. Governments are no longer buying satellites or SATCOM services. They are building critical infrastructure, funding it on multi-year or multi-decade timelines, and designing it from the outset to be resilient, interoperable among allies, and upgradable over its lifespan.
In the future being built today, architecture matters as much as capability. NATO created HALO so that independent nations could fund and own their own satellites, while also creating an interoperable network. The Space Data Network was designed to combine military and commercial systems rather than operate in isolation. Governments are increasingly expecting infrastructure solutions that treat allied interoperability and open, multi-vendor terminal support as baseline requirements, rather than closed, proprietary systems.
The race to build critical infrastructure in space is happening right now – in the Arctic, across the NATO alliance, and inside the Pentagon space architecture. These networks are being built for openness and allied access from the first satellite launch. The competitive landscape in space will not be defined solely by the number of satellites launched. Success will go to those who can build resilient, interoperable architectures that governments trust to serve as critical national infrastructure for decades to come.
