Next Steps in Advancing U.S. International Partnerships in Space
This series, Space in Focus, explores key space trends, challenges, and policy issues that will confront the next administration as well as offers recommendations for how to navigate them.
In recent years, extending U.S. alliances and partnerships into outer space has yielded significant results:
- The completion of the final international agreements for constructing the first lunar space station;
- A massive investment by Japan in future lunar surface facilities and the announcement that the first international Artemis astronaut on the lunar surface will be from Japan;
- Potential industry collaboration to create a major missile detection and tracking constellation with Japan;
- A joint effort with India to leverage U.S. commercial capabilities in using the International Space Station (ISS);
- The completion of space framework agreements with Japan, New Zealand, and Saudi Arabia and Technology Safeguards Agreements with Australia and Canada that will create new commercial launch opportunities; and
- New bilateral mechanisms with France, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, and the United Kingdom, as well as multilateral mechanisms involving Africa, the Americas, the Indo-Pacific Quad, and the trilateral U.S.-Japan-Republic of Korea (ROK) partnership.
While these are important steps, the incoming presidential administration will have significant opportunities to take U.S. international space partnerships to the next level.
Strengthening U.S. Industrial Alliances in Space
The accelerating pace of innovation in the U.S. commercial space sector has broadened the range of opportunities for international cooperation to meet shared objectives. In response, the U.S. government has included industry in key space dialogues to clarify respective national policies and regulations, build business-to-business relationships, and identify barriers to cooperation in need of removal.
Moving forward, policymakers should seek to evolve these commercial dialogues into industrial alliances that can support shared objectives such as executing specific programs, promoting economic growth and innovation, and creating more resilient and secure supply chains.
Governments need to continue to lead efforts to remove barriers to cooperation, address market access problems, and pursue regulatory interoperability, but industry also has a leading role to play in fostering such alliances. This should include establishing industry platforms to increase reciprocal investment, support innovative startups, and facilitate business-to-business partnerships. For example, the U.S.-Japan Comprehensive Dialogue on Space has called for a space industry network composed of U.S. and Japanese companies interested in supporting the goals of the U.S.-Japan alliance in space.
Additionally, industry can help bridge the divide between the Artemis Accords signatories group (which has quadrupled in size in recent years) and the Artemis Program, so that the Artemis Accords signatories can support necessary but underfunded infrastructure; an initial step would be creating industry-led as well as government-industry joint formats prior to the 2025 meeting of Accords signatories.
Accelerating the Integration of Allies and Partners in National Security Space
Recently, the Department of Defense (DOD) has taken steps to integrate with allies and partners in space. For example, General B. Chance Saltzman has named UK Air Marshal Paul Godfrey as his first Assistant Chief of Space Operations for Future Concepts and Partnerships; the Combined Space Operations (CSpO) initiative has expanded to include Italy, Japan, and Norway; and the DOD has issued a new classification policy for space.
The incoming administration should consider how to accelerate efforts to create coalitions of like-minded nations in space, just as it does in other domains like the air and seas. This could include broadening the scope of CSpO (or a successor initiative) to ensure that friendly nations who have significant space capabilities and who are on the frontlines of geopolitical competition (e.g., the ROK) can participate. Such an expanded group would need to exercise together to build up requisite processes, technical interoperability and standards, and people-to-people ties before they are needed in a crisis or conflict.
Policymakers should also clarify which entity in the DOD is the lead for integrating spacefaring allies and partners into U.S. architectures and should proactively convey to allies and partners which capabilities are priorities for foreign investment (e.g., communications and missile warning).
Deepening International Cooperation for a Commercial LEO Ecosystem
U.S. policy calls for the retirement of the ISS after 2030, and NASA is developing a low Earth orbit (LEO) microgravity strategy, including the development of commercial LEO destinations.
International commercial partnerships are already playing a vital role in supporting this effort, including providing funding and hardware. Amid tight NASA budgets, such partnerships are essential for the creation of a sustainable commercial-led ecosystem. To facilitate and accelerate such efforts, the Department of Commerce and NASA should actively encourage foreign commercial partnerships and investments in LEO and seek to convene a LEO investment summit in 2025 open to a broad range of friendly nations.
U.S. government regulatory actions are also needed in a number of areas to facilitate commercial activities on LEO platforms. For example, providing substantively similar measures to commercial operators that already underpin international cooperation in LEO, such as cross-waivers of liability and export control carve outs. Private operations will also require approval of radio frequency licenses that will benefit from government-industry coordination.
Accelerating Space Export Control Reform
Recent years have seen a drumbeat for reform of U.S. space export controls, including clarifying the U.S. interpretation of its Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) policy, as well as a Vice Presidential directive for the U.S. government to conduct a review of space export controls to enable a globally competitive U.S. industrial base (the results of which were announcement in October 2024).
Such reform efforts are crucial for strengthening the U.S. industrial base by ensuring that U.S. industry faces a level playing field abroad, that controls keep up with rapidly evolving commercial technology, and that the United States is fully executing its foreign policy priorities and commitments. Policymakers should consider additional reform measures in 2025, including further updating the U.S. interpretation of its MTCR commitments to ensure U.S. regulations are aligned with other responsible MTCR members.
As the incoming administration considers how to grapple with the challenges of expanded competition in outer space, while also managing the reality of a constrained U.S. budget, the United States’ international space partnerships are an enduring source of strategic advantage and should be an important pillar of incoming policymakers’ approach. Building industrial alliances, strengthening allied and partner integration in national security space, deepening international cooperation for a commercial LEO ecosystem, and accelerating space export control reform can all contribute to helping the United States meet its objectives in space in the years to come.
Sean Wilson is a senior associate (non-resident) with the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. He is also the founder and CEO of the Mirai Group and the former director of international space policy at the White House.
The opinions and characterizations in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the U.S. government.