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Ramstein Air Base to host new NATO space center
COLOGNE, Germany – Alliance defense ministers are expected to approve a plan this week to create a NATO space center at the U.S. Air Force base in Ramstein, according to local media reports and officials.
The center’s creation, which is on the agenda for a meeting of defense ministers on Oct. 22, would come amid space capabilities gaining importance in the defense calculus of global powers. The United States, Russia and China have invested heavily in space technology in the past years, though many of the activities are closely guarded secrets.
“We expect NATO defense ministers will agree on Thursday to create a new NATO space centre at our Air Command in Ramstein,” an alliance official told Defense news. “This will be a focal point for ensuring space support to NATO operations, sharing information and coordinating our activities.”
The plans were first reported on Monday by German press agency DPA and the daily Süddeutsche Zeitung.
Alliance members designated space as an operational domain at the 2019 London summit. Spacecraft are essential, but vulnerable, elements powering modern-day armed forces, carrying payloads for navigation, communications, surveillance and targeting.
German industry pushes for space launch site in the North Sea
A German industry association hopes civilian adoption of a micro-launch concept will open the door to defense applications.
“Satellite systems keep our world running in ways many people barely realize. Commerce, weather forecasts, mobile phones and banking all rely on satellites,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told German international broadcaster Deutsche Welle.
Still undecided, meanwhile, is the location of a center of excellence devoted to military space, a kind of NATO think tank on the subject, where analysts would study concepts and develop doctrine. France and Germany each have lobbied to host such an organization.
A group of German companies has urged the Berlin government to highlight the country’s space-technology capabilities in an effort to lure the center of excellence here. One proposal, pitched by the Federation of German Industries association, envisions building a mobile launch platform in the middle of the North Sea that could eventually be used by the armed forces of Germany and NATO. Such a move would nurture an ecosystem of companies whose business business model is small, low-cost space launches in the style of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, the group has argued.