Following a meeting of foreign ministers in Brussels, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters that space can be used for peaceful purposes- but that it can also be used with aggressive intentions.

“Satellites can be jammed, hacked or weaponized. Anti-satellite weapons could cripple communications and other services our societies rely on, such as air travel, weather forecast or banking,” he said.

Stoltenberg’s comments echo those of the Deputy Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, Lieutenant General Scott Kindsvater, who presented a space briefing before the Committee last month. “Space is part of our daily lives,” he warned, “It is therefore important that we are vigilant and resilient – also in space”.

NATO’s decision to adopt space as an operational domain is in line with decisions already made by a number of countries, including those already party to the treaty. In August this year, Washington launched the US Space Command to oversee off-world military operations; the Command’s leader, four-star Gen. John Raymond, describing space as a “warfighting domain.”