NATO has officially announced the construction of a space center in Ramstein, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. The Space Center is to be attached to the German Air Force High Command and will primarily serve as a coordination center for space surveillance, as Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced on Thursday after a video conference of the defense ministers.
Threats to satellites
In this way, information about possible threats to satellites could be gathered at Ramstein in the future. It is also conceivable that the Space Center will later be developed into a command center for defense missions. Coordination of space activities will make NATO stronger, but is only a first step, Stoltenberg commented. The Deutsche Presse-Agentur had already reported about the project on Monday.
NATO’s plans are a consequence of the fundamental decision taken last year to declare space a separate area of operations. The decision will allow NATO, for example, to request allies to provide satellite communications or imagery data transfer capacity for deployments. It has also led to even more intensive discussions within Allianz about when possible attacks from or in space should be treated as a federal case in the future.
German participation not yet clarified
It is still unclear how the German Armed Forces will be involved in the Space Center project. German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer simply reiterated on the sidelines of the deliberations that despite the challenges posed by the Corona pandemic, Germany was committed to providing ten percent of the capabilities within NATO in the future.