Berlin’s Orbit: Germany’s Defence Industry Enters the Astropolitical Age

Berlin’s Orbit: Germany’s Defence Industry Enters the Astropolitical Age

“astropolitics [may] simply replicate in orbit the divisions already known on Earth”

Brandenburg Gate Night Sky

The recently published “Gesamtkonzeption militärische Verteidigung”, Germany’s first formal military strategy of the post-Zeitenwende era, revealed a country intent on becoming the structural backbone of European defence, filling most of those capability gaps that have so far been covered by the United States. Less discussed, but no less revealing, is the spatial corollary of this transformation. In the spring of 2025 Germany published its Space Safety and Security Strategy, a document that translates this same drive for autonomy into the orbital domain and that fits within the broader effort to reconvert the German industry. With the crisis in the automotive sector eroding the country’s traditional manufacturing centrality, Berlin is looking to defence as a new engine of innovation and skilled employment, making aerospace a pillar of its security-focused industrial policy. The figures speak for themselves: 35 billion euros allocated for space systems by 2030, and a record contribution of 5 billion euros at the latest ESA ministerial meeting, placing Germany among the top military-space budgets in the world.

Astropolitics and Private NewSpace

The geopolitical premise is contained in a word that the German document states explicitly, astropolitics. No longer merely a support domain, space today is an arena of strategic competition for orbits, frequencies and future lunar or asteroid resources. The strategy candidly acknowledges that this transformation has been accelerated by the explosive growth of the private sector. It is commercial NewSpace, with constellations of thousands of satellites and plummeting launch costs, that has made the orbital environment congested, contested and militarily urgent. Faced with a landscape that institutions are struggling to regulate, given the proliferation of private actors capable of immediate dual-use applications, Germany’s national response lies in a domestic ecosystem of startups backed by sovereign contracts and a security architecture that seeks to turn entrepreneurial speed into a strategic asset.
It is also essential to note that the German space strategy is careful to anchor itself firmly in international law. The strategy establishes that the 1967 Outer Space Treaty remains the foundation, while also taking care to clarify that it does not exclude the military use of space as such, nor does it negate the right to individual or collective self-defence enshrined in the UN Charter. A fundamental premise which pictures a Germany that wants to operate within the bounds of international law without showing naïveté.

A Centralised Strategy

The Space Safety and Security Strategy adopts a “whole-of-government” approach that refuses traditional ministerial fragmentation and is structured around three areas of action. The first is the identification of risks and threats, which include the kinetic, electronic and cyber counterspace capabilities of Russia and China, as well as debris and space weather. The second is international cooperation and the promotion of a sustainable role for the country. Germany points to NATO as the deterrence framework (an attack in space could trigger Article 5), supports UN initiatives for norms of responsible behaviour and seeks a leading role in building an EU space security architecture. The third and final area of action centers on the concepts of deterrence, defence and resilience, under which the Bundeswehr must be able not only to protect its own assets but also to limit an adversary’s use of space, doing so with responsive systems capable of rapid regeneration. On the legal front, this approach is set to be codified through a framework law that will register space as a new critical infrastructure sector, turning the protection of orbital assets into a permanent legal and organisational obligation.

The Operational Architecture

Translating these strategic concepts into practice is complex, but already a reality. The Bunderswehr’s Space Command in Uedem operates around the clock and is set to be joined by a multinational European Space Component Command. A Space defence Academy and a wargaming/simulation centre will train personnel to operate in orbital conflict scenarios, while responsibility for the military use of space rests with the Chief of the Air and Space Force.

On the capability front, Germany is deploying a global sensor network for Space Domain Awareness and building integrated multi-orbit constellations for communication and electronic reconnaissance, in synergy with the European IRIS² system. Alongside these programmes, the strategy also envisions the development of a kind of space logistics capability, with agile satellites for in-orbit inspection, maintenance and refueling, as well as reusable spaceplanes. At the same time, interministerial assessments of dependencies and vulnerabilities are planned, along with the protection of supply chains through export controls on dual-use technologies.

The major novelty for Germany’s traditional industrial framework is that startups are now the driving force behind this architecture. DLR’s Space Innovation Hub serves as a bridge between research and military procurement, while companies such as ISAR Aerospace, Rocket Factory Augsburg (a subsidiary of OHB) and Impulse receive government funding to develop microlaunchers promising rapid and flexible access to space. This is Germany’s bet on a national Responsive Space capability.

The Achille’s Heel: Access to Space

However, it is precisely the access to space that reveals the greatest fragilities in Germany’s strategy. ISAR Aerospace’s tests from the Norwegian spaceport of Andøya ended in a failure that is perhaps more significant geostrategically than technologically or industrially. Andøya is certainly a logistically convenient site. Nevertheless, it is located in an area of growing Arctic tension and competition, where the presence of Russian submarines leaves the site exposed. Plus, as a base open to maritime navigation, it is poorly suited to the requirements of a protected infrastructure. The value of the Arctic latitude for launches, however, remains fundamental, as also shown by the German partnership with Finland and Sweden to position surveillance radars at high latitudes and by the fact that Germany is already seeking alternatives along the same latitudes, exploring a new launch site in Canada and deepening cooperation with the United Kingdom over the SaxaVord spaceport in Scotland.

Less well known, but no less strategic, is the opening towards a second gravitational point of strength: The equator. Launching from equatorial bases allows to exploit the Earth’s rotational speed, cutting costs and increasing payload capacity. It is therefore not surprising that in September 2025 Germany initiated a dialogue with the nascent African Space Agency, demonstrating an already structured and ambitious astropolitical thinking that seeks partnerships at complementary latitudes, building bridges towards a continent which could potentially become a future launch hub.

The European Balance and the Franco-German Axis

Germany’s strategic redefinition cannot help but affect the delicate Franco-German industrial axis. For decades, the formula driving the Franco-German aerospace industry was clear; French technological leadership paired with German funding. Today, the emergence of private launch vehicles in Germany challenges the French primacy and introduces competition within Europe itself. Paris has responded by convening a summit in September to review continental space policy and manage this centrifugal pressure. Berlin, meanwhile, is proceeding on a double track: On one hand, strengthening transatlantic cooperation by continuing to purchase Israeli-American Arrow anti-missile systems and taking part in initiatives such as Operation Olympic Defender. On the other, by building a German satellite fleet already open to the other German-speaking countries, thus positioning itself also as a potential framework nation for the space programmes of the rest of Europe. An approach which, if carried through, would risk shifting the center of gravity of European space security from Paris to Berlin.

Conclusions

Germany, at least from a strategic standpoint, has made a qualitative leap that places it among the few global actors capable of conceiving space as an integrated military domain. Its strategy is coherent, backed by record investment, and an industrial vision that ties together defence, innovation and economic reconversion. However, autonomous access to space is still a fragile objective, as the Andøya failure demonstrates, and the lack of sovereign launch bases makes the independence Germany is pursuing precarious. Moreover, the proliferation of national initiatives risks duplicating capabilities and fueling tensions with France, at a moment when Europe needs critical mass rather than fragmentation.

Germany’s wager in the end is also Europe’s: If Berlin manages to balance national ambition with structured cooperation, space could become the ground on which a genuine common defence is built. Otherwise, astropolitics will simply replicate in orbit the divisions already known on Earth.

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