Outer space technologies—rockets, satellites, and their supporting terrestrial infrastructure—are critical enablers of modern information-centric societies, with applications ranging from intelligence collection, nuclear early warning, and targeting precision-guided weapons to telecommunications and the internet, mapping and geolocation, environmental monitoring, and weather forecasting. Space systems thus contribute to forms of military, environmental, and human security and are increasingly understood to constitute a key element of national defence and economic power. At the same time, leading space powers are developing counterspace capabilities to threaten adversaries’ satellites. There are widespread concerns that outer space governance is insufficient to manage these security challenges, with significant ambiguities and gaps in existing rules. Fundamental obstacles include competing approaches led by China and Russia and the US and other Western states, respectively, with corresponding risk of the fragmentation of space governance.

My research examines the status and potential trajectories of outer space governance, specifically concerning the characterisation and regulation of military space operations. I theorise the processes through which international norms and legal rules are promoted and resisted and collect empirical data to assess the nature and extent of such change. My fellowship will be dedicated towards advancing two related projects. First, I examine how the unique physical properties of Earth orbit enable and constrain the use of space technologies for (terrestrial) security missions. Second, I identify mechanisms and processes through which norms regulating military space activities may emerge and transform. My overarching goal is to better integrate outer space into the study of global politics and generate new academic knowledge which can in turn inform policy deliberations among governmental, non-governmental, and commercial space actors aimed at preventing armed conflict in outer space.