It's official: planning is underway for the Australian military to launch its own space division in 2022, with its chief already appointed. It was announced over the weekend that Royal Australian Air Force Air Vice-Marshal Catherine Roberts will lead the division from January. The newly created military space command, which will draw on all aspects of the Australian Defence Force, will "allow us to establish an organisation to sustain, force-generate, operate space capabilities and assign them to a joint operation command if needed", according to RAAF chief Air Marshal Mel Hupfeld.
The RAAF chief has said previously that unlike other nations like China and Russia, Australia would not seek to develop technologies to attack enemy satellites.
But what does that mean? Why is the proposed Australian space division in the military? And how does it compare to others around the world?...MORE
