The Quiet War Above: Grey Zone Operations in Space
Ambiguity. That's the weapon of choice in orbit right now. Not missiles, not kinetic kill vehicles, not the explosive ASAT tests that generate headlines and debris fields. The real contest for space superiority is being fought with manoeuvres that could be maintenance or could be rehearsals for attack, and no one on the outside can tell the difference.
While the world watches kinetic wars on the ground, a different kind of conflict is playing out hundreds and thousands of kilometres overhead. It does not look like war. It is not supposed to. The grey zone, the contested space between peace and armed conflict where states pursue strategic advantage while staying below the threshold that would trigger a military response, has entered orbit. And it is accelerating faster than the governance frameworks built to manage it.
If you depend on space for anything, and in 2026 that means virtually every government, military, and connected economy on the planet, this is the threat you should be watching. Not because a satellite is about to be blown up, but because the slow erosion of norms, trust, and operational certainty in orbit is already reshaping the strategic environment, with very little public accountability.
What the grey zone looks like in space
On the ground, grey zone tactics are familiar: election interference, cyber operations, economic coercion, proxy forces, disinformation. In space, the toolkit looks different, but the logic is identical. Act aggressively enough to gain an advantage. Stay ambiguous enough to avoid retaliation.
The most visible manifestation is the rendezvous and proximity operations (RPOs). These are manoeuvres in which one satellite deliberately approaches another at close range. Every major space power does them. The US operates the X-37B reusable spaceplane for classified missions that almost certainly include orbital inspection. China and Russia have both conducted extensive RPO campaigns in the geostationary orbit, where the world's most strategically valuable communication and early-warning satellites reside.
The problem is not that RPOs exist. The problem is that the same manoeuvre that constitutes a legitimate space domain awareness activity is indistinguishable, from the outside, from a rehearsal for attack.
Russia demonstrated this in 2019 when Cosmos-2542 released a subsatellite, Cosmos-2543, and the pair began stalking a classified US KH-11 reconnaissance satellite. The Russian spacecraft closed to within 150 to 300 kilometres, close enough to gather significant intelligence through optical and electronic means. The Americans moved their satellite. Russia denied hostile intent. And the incident sat in that grey zone where attribution is possible, but escalation is unwise.
China has been even more methodical. In January 2022, its Shijian-21 satellite docked with a defunct BeiDou navigation satellite in geostationary orbit and towed it to a higher graveyard orbit. Beijing described this as a space debris mitigation experiment. US defence officials noted that the same grappling technology could be repurposed to seize or reposition adversary satellites in a conflict. Neither interpretation is provably wrong, and that ambiguity is not a bug in the system. It is the system.
In January 2025, China launched Shijian-25, described publicly as a satellite refuelling test. Within months, tracking firms observed it approaching SJ-21, conducting close-approach manoeuvres that raised the possibility of the first-ever on-orbit refuelling. The US Space Force confirmed the two spacecraft were moving in sync. Whether this was a servicing demonstration or a counterspace capability test depends entirely on which lens you choose to look through, and that deliberate ambiguity is the hallmark of grey zone operations.
The electronic warfare front
Kinetic threats, missiles and grappling arms get the most attention. But the grey zone operations actually used today are electronic: jamming, spoofing, and cyberattacks against space systems and the signals they provide.
GPS jamming and spoofing in the Baltic region has become a persistent feature of European security since Russia's invasion of Ukraine. In 2025, Poland recorded over 2,700 cases of GNSS interference in January alone. Lithuania recorded more than 1,000 cases in a single month, a 22-fold increase over the previous year. Germany saw GPS disruptions affecting civilian aircraft jump from 25 reported incidents in 2023 to 447 in the first eight months of 2025. Researchers from Gdynia Maritime University triangulated the source of these emissions to military antenna facilities in Russia's Kaliningrad exclave.
The interference is not constant. It is sporadic, persistent, and annoying, which is exactly how grey zone operations are supposed to work. Enough to degrade confidence in navigation systems across the region. Not enough to constitute an act of war. In the maritime domain, research vessels documented GPS positioning being unavailable off Gdansk approximately 17 per cent of the time during late June and July 2025, with combined jamming and spoofing that targeted multiple satellite constellations simultaneously.
The European Parliament debated the issue in September 2025 after the GPS on a plane carrying European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen was disrupted by an alleged Russian jamming attack. Around 40 per cent of European air traffic is now affected by GNSS interference. The EU announced sanctions against Russian entities directly involved in jamming and spoofing operations, a diplomatic step that acknowledged the problem without solving it.
In conflict zones, the picture is sharper. Russia has deployed electronic warfare systems specifically designed to counter satellite communications supporting Ukrainian forces. The Kalinka system, first reported in late 2024, was developed to target Starlink terminals at ranges up to 15 kilometres. The broader lesson from Ukraine is that satellite services, once considered too distributed to disrupt, are now squarely in the crosshairs of operational electronic warfare.
The dual-use problem
At the heart of the space grey zone is a problem with no clean resolution: the capabilities required for legitimate commercial space operations are the same as those required for military counterspace operations. Not similar but the same.
On-orbit servicing, the ability to refuel, repair, and reposition satellites, is a growing commercial market. Companies like Astroscale and Northrop Grumman have invested heavily in life-extension services. The technology is incredibly valuable. But a satellite that can grapple a defunct spacecraft for debris removal can also grapple an operational satellite for interference or destruction. A spacecraft that can inspect another at close range for maintenance purposes can also conduct intelligence collection. A ground system designed to update satellite software can, in theory, be used to infiltrate the supply chain months or years before a satellite is even deployed.
This is not a new dynamic. Dual-use technology has been a feature of the space domain since the first reconnaissance satellites. What has changed is the scale. The proliferation of commercial space actors means more vehicles with RPO capability are in orbit than ever before. The growth of mega-constellations means more potential targets and more potential cover for suspicious manoeuvres. And the blurring of commercial and military space, accelerated by the Ukraine war's demonstration of Starlink's battlefield utility, means that the boundary between civilian infrastructure and military target has effectively dissolved.
China's approach is instructive. Its civil-military fusion strategy means that commercial and scientific satellite programmes feed directly into military capability. The an, ostensibly experimental, has demonstrated capabilities that span debris removal, close-proximity inspection, satellite grappling, and what the CSIS Space Threat Assessment describes as tactical rehearsals disguised as routine manoeuvres. By 2025, China operated over 510 ISR-capable satellites, and its on-orbit presence had grown by approximately 927 per cent since 2015.
Why the governance gap matters
The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 prohibits the placement of nuclear weapons in orbit and the militarisation of celestial bodies. It says nothing about non-nuclear counterspace weapons, electronic warfare, rendezvous operations, or cyber attacks against space systems. The treaty was written for an era of two spacefaring superpowers launching a handful of satellites per year. It was not designed for a domain with thousands of active spacecraft, commercial operators with military contracts, and grey zone tactics that operate precisely in the ambiguity between peaceful use and hostile act.
There is no shortage of principles. The Artemis Accords, the UN space debris guidelines, the Long-term Sustainability guidelines, and UNOOSA's frameworks all provide aspirational text. And for collision avoidance, there is a functioning system: the US Space Force's 18th Space Defense Squadron shares conjunction-warning data with over a hundred partners from 25 nations through Space-Track.org and formal SSA sharing agreements. That works reasonably well for debris and unintentional close approaches. What is missing are mechanisms designed for deliberate activity: crisis communication channels for orbital incidents involving hostile or ambiguous intent, interference attribution processes, agreed behaviours for proximity operations, and notification requirements that distinguish a servicing mission from a stalking one. In other words, the safety infrastructure exists for accidents. It does not exist for grey zone operations.
This is a structural issue, not a political one. Grey zone operations succeed precisely because the governance environment is ambiguous. If you cannot define what constitutes hostile intent in orbit, you cannot establish a clear threshold for response. If you cannot attribute a satellite malfunction to a nearby spacecraft's actions with certainty, you cannot escalate without risk. If an on-orbit servicing vehicle and an ASAT weapon are physically identical, you cannot regulate one without constraining the other.
France has arguably been the most forward-leaning Western nation in responding to this challenge, and its investment trajectory suggests where the broader environment is heading. In November 2025, President Macron announced an additional €4.2 billion in military space spending for 2026 to 2030, bringing total planned investment to over €10 billion by the end of the decade. His language was not diplomatic: "The war of today is already being fought in space, and the war of tomorrow will begin in space."
The French approach is layered. At the demonstration level, the YODA programme ,(Yeux en Orbite pour un Démonstrateur Agile, or Eyes in Orbit for an Agile Demonstrator) is building two small patrol nanosatellites, each weighing 10 to 20 kilograms, designed to investigate suspicious manoeuvres by Russian and Chinese spacecraft in geostationary orbit. Lieutenant General Philippe Adam, France's Commander of Space from 2022 to 2025, has been candid about the threat picture. It was a Russian satellite's clandestine approach to the Franco-Italian military telecommunications satellite Athena-Fidus in 2017, made public by then Defence Minister Florence Parly the following year, that catalysed France's decision to establish its Space Command. Lt Gen Adam has also stressed that certain behaviours now being observed in orbit could be preparatory to conflict, and that any use of force against an aggressor satellite creates consequences for every operator in that orbital regime. That awareness shapes the programme design as much as the threat itself.
In low Earth orbit, the TOUTATIS programme is intended to add two further nanosatellites: LISA-1 for observation and SPLINTER for autonomous manoeuvre and counterspace actions, being developed by U-Space and MBDA. Both programmes feed into FLAMHE, a laser development project, and ultimately into ÉGIDE (Engin Géodérivant d'Intervention et de Découragement), a planned operational satellite with directed-energy capability targeted for around 2030.
None of this has launched yet. YODA was originally scheduled for 2023 and has slipped repeatedly, partly because France insisted on using Ariane v6, which, after its own delays, now has a full manifest. As of early 2026, CNES was still seeking a launch solution, and industry sources suggest that YODA is unlikely to reach orbit before 2028. TOUTATIS and EGIDE remain further out. The ambition is real and funded, but the gap between announced timelines and operational reality reminds us that building a counterspace posture is harder than declaring one.
The significance is not just the hardware. France committed in 2022 not to test destructive anti-satellite missiles, calling kinetic ASAT tests destabilising and irresponsible. Instead, it is building a counterspace posture around non-kinetic, non-debris-generating capabilities: directed energy, electronic disruption, and close-proximity manoeuvre. That is a deliberate doctrinal choice. France is not pretending space is peaceful. It is preparing to operate in the grey zone on terms that avoid the debris problem while retaining the ability to act.
What this means for the rest of Europe and allies
France is the exception. For most of Europe, the vulnerability is already measurable. You can count it in the thousands of GNSS interference incidents recorded monthly across the Baltic, the North Sea, and increasingly the Mediterranean. You can see it in the EU's scramble to upgrade Galileo's ground segment and deploy anti-spoofing authentication services. And you can read it in the open letter from the Baltic and North Sea coastal states, which warns that satellite interference and AIS manipulation are increasing maritime safety risks.
Beyond France's investments, Europe collectively has space interests but not yet space resilience. The continent depends on American GPS, European Galileo, and increasingly on commercial constellations for positioning, timing, communications, earth observation, and military situational awareness. When those systems are degraded, whether by deliberate interference or orbital manoeuvre, the effects cascade through civilian aviation, maritime navigation, financial systems, telecoms networks, and military operations. France has recognised this and is spending accordingly. The question is whether the rest of the continent, and allies further afield, will follow before the gap between French capability and broader European exposure becomes a strategic liability in its own right.
The most immediate priority is sovereign space situational awareness. You cannot assess threats you cannot see. Europe's ability to independently track and characterise objects in orbit, particularly in geostationary orbit where the most strategically significant grey zone RPO activity occurs, remains insufficient. Without independent SSA, Europe depends on US data for its own threat picture, which creates both a dependency and a potential single point of failure.
Positioning, navigation, and timing are the next vulnerability that needs attention. The EU's deployment of Galileo's Open Service Navigation Message Authentication in mid-2025 was a step forward, but authentication alone does not eliminate spoofing. The broader move toward multi-constellation, multi-frequency GNSS receivers, combined with terrestrial backup systems like eLoran, is essential. The UK's deployment of an operational eLoran system, running since 2014, provides a model worth studying.
Then there is the ground segment, where most real-world space disruption actually occurs. Ground stations, terminals, uplink and downlink facilities, cloud-based mission control, spectrum dependencies: this is where resilience spending yields the fastest returns and where smaller nations can make the biggest contribution per pound invested. Orbital capabilities grab headlines, but ground infrastructure is where you are most vulnerable.
Beyond hardware, there is the question of norms. If the international community cannot agree on binding rules for proximity operations, allies can start with coordinated national positions on what constitutes unacceptable behaviour in orbit: minimum approach distances, notification requirements for RPOs, agreed protocols for incident communication. These do not need to be global treaties. They can begin as bilateral or multilateral frameworks among like-minded spacefaring states.
And commercial space needs to be treated as critical infrastructure, with regulation that reflects that status. The war in Ukraine demonstrated that commercial satellites are military targets. Russia has been explicit about its intention to consider commercial assets used by the US military as legitimate targets. If commercial operators are providing services that states depend on for national security, the cybersecurity, resilience, and supply-chain assurance standards applied to those operators need to reflect that reality. This is the deeper challenge.
Grey zone competition in space is not going away. If anything, the incentive structures that drive it are strengthening. The benefits of ambiguity are high, the costs of attribution are steep, and the governance frameworks that might constrain such behaviour remain structurally weak.
Space compounds this in ways that other domains do not. Dual-use technology, attribution difficulty, and irreversible consequences all converge in orbit. A satellite disabled by a co-orbital ASAT or a supply-chain cyber attack cannot be repaired by sending a technician. A geostationary communications satellite that goes silent affects services across an entire hemisphere, and if escalation spirals from electronic warfare to kinetic action, the debris consequences could deny access to entire orbital regimes for generations.
The states that are most active in the space grey zone understand this. Russia's investments in jamming, spoofing, co-orbital ASATs, and even nuclear counterspace concepts are designed to exploit the gap between what is technically possible and what is politically attributable. China's methodical development of inspection, grappling, refuelling, and close-proximity capabilities under the cover of commercial and scientific programmes is designed to create options that can be exercised without crossing thresholds.
The choice for everyone else is whether they will shape the norms and capabilities that define how this competition unfolds, or whether they will simply inherit the consequences of someone else's decisions.
Because the grey zone in space is already here. The only question is whether the rest of the world is prepared to operate in it.
References: CSIS Space Threat Assessment 2025; Secure World Foundation Global Counterspace Capabilities Report 2025; NSSA Space Threat Fact Sheet (May 2025); GPSPatron/Gdynia Maritime University GNSS Interference Research (2025); DoD 2025 Report on Military and Security Developments Involving the PRC; ASPI Strategist reporting on grey zone operations in space.
