The threat of war in space is no longer just the stuff of science fiction, according to academics who are warning of the inevitability of armed conflict beyond Earth.
Leading space and legal experts from Australia, the UK and the United States are collaborating on a new project which aims to improve the understanding of how Earth-bound laws could be applied in times of armed conflict in space.
"Conflict in outer space is not a case of 'if' but 'when'," Melissa de Zwart, the dean of law at the University of Adelaide, said.
"However, the legal regime that governs the use of force and actual armed conflict in outer space is currently very unclear."
Professor de Zwart is among a group of international academics who have begun work on the Woomera Manual, which they hope will become the definitive document on military and security law as it applies to space, when it is completed in 2020.
Rob McLaughlin, a professor of Military and Security Law at UNSW Canberra, said space was a key enabler for communications, surveillance, early warning, and navigation systems, and was therefore a critical security and conflict domain.
"Such extensive use of space by military forces has produced a growing awareness that space-based assets are becoming particularly vulnerable to adverse actions by potential competitors," Professor McLaughlin said.
Last year, the US secretary of the Air Force, Heather Wilson, declared America must start to prepare for the possibility of armed conflict in outer space.
US President Donald Trump also recently called for a dedicated US military space force.
"My new national strategy for space recognises that space is a war-fighting domain, just like the land, air and sea," President Trump said last month.
"We have the Air Force, we'll have the space force."
Duncan Blake, a former legal adviser to the Royal Australian Air Force, who is now based at the University of Adelaide, said military battles could soon be in space.
"The Chinese tested an anti-satellite missile in 2007 against one of their own weather satellites — it caused a lot of space debris," he said.
"The Russians, they've tested an anti-satellite missile as well, and it's a capability that the US clearly possesses."
