In 2021 the Australian Government announced they were in the process of planning for the development of the Australian Space Command which would be headed by the Australian military.
Royal Australian Air Force Air Vice-Marshal Catherine Roberts will lead the division.
It will include the Royal Australian Navy, Australian Army and Royal Australian Air Force, and will be manned also by civilian and private corporate partners.
Australia would not seek to develop technologies to attack enemy satellites.
The intentions of the Australian Space Command would be to
quote...
"allow us to establish an organisation to sustain, force-generate, operate space capabilities and assign them to a joint operation command if needed"
"What the division will not do is weaponise space, nor use it to wage war".
Wait for it....
On Tuesday 22nd March 2022 Australia officially announced the Australian Space Command was all systems go.
But the announcement by News outlets and from the Minister of Defense Peter Dutton, used the recent Ukraine/Russia war, China as an example of why Australia needs to have this Space Command and possibly expand it to a US like Space Force and use it as a defense arm of the Australian military.
Dutton said:
the launch of Australia’s Defence Space Command to help protect against hostile acts in earth’s orbit and beyond.
Justification for the new program was partly put down to recent hostile acts by Russia and rapid advancement of Chinese military capability.
The Defence Space Command will aim to develop Australia’s military space capabilities to protect intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets such as satellites.
“Space is becoming more congested and is already contested – particularly as the boundaries between competition and conflict become increasingly blurred through grey-zone activities,” Mr Dutton said.
“Technological developments continue to change the character of warfare. Particularly in the Air and Space domains.”
“We are witnessing China’s rapid militarisation – the largest of its kind in peacetime and modern times – a build-up unaccompanied by transparency or strategic reassurance for concerned nations in the region and beyond,”
So there we have it - Australia went from protecting, observing and monitoring assets in Space to a defensive position within a year. From talking about satellites for agriculture, mining, health and cleaning up junk - to war.