On the northwest coast of a mountainous Arctic island, facing the Norwegian Sea, lies arguably the world’s most dramatic launch site for rockets.
The stream of political leaders visiting the Andøya Spaceport in northern Norway shows its vital importance: it may be Europe’s best shot at catching up in the race to militarize space while breaking free from dependence on Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
Launching satellites into orbit “is a capability that is important for Norway, for the EU, for Europe,” Ketil Olsen, the chief executive officer of Andøya Space and formerly a Norwegian vice admiral, said in an interview. “For us it’s about strategic autonomy, it’s about sovereignty, and it’s about European independence.”
It’s also yet to come to fruition.
Satellites for observation, communications and precise geolocation have been military necessities for years, and new weapons such as orbital interceptors and inspection systems are heading in that direction. China, Russia and the US are pouring more than $200 billion into such efforts, putting hundreds of satellites in orbit over the last half-decade and testing weapons on Earth and in space.
Missing from this intensifying race is Europe, hobbled by misaligned interests, limited national budgets and the lack of a crucial piece of space technology: enough heavy launchers to make scores of trips to orbit each year.
China’s Long March 5 and Russia’s Proton-M and Angara A5 launchers can each take about 25,000 kilograms (55,116 pounds) to orbit. The SpaceX Falcon Heavy can carry almost 64,000 kg.
Ariane 6, operated by France-based commercial launch provider Arianespace SA, can carry about 22,000 kg — but booster production and infrastructure limit it to about 10 launches per year.
In 2025, the US averaged more than 15 launches per month, led by SpaceX. Closing that gap while avoiding dependence on a foreign company is the biggest obstacle to preventing Europe from being left behind in the orbital arms race. And doing so would cost billions of euros.
“If Europe is serious about being a sovereign space power, it should be able to meet its satellite needs by itself,” said Bleddyn Bowen, author of Original Sin: Power, Technology and War in Outer Space and an associate professor of astropolitics at Durham University in the UK. “That’s the fundamental plank of being a space power of any kind.”
European startups are racing to create an alternative to the US, but there have been only a handful of launches. Their focus is on speed, reusability and homegrown security rather than payload, limiting their usefulness for the military.
One of Europe’s great hopes, Isar Aerospace SE of Germany, has scrubbed its planned “Onward and Upward” mission multiple times and has yet to set a new date. Its first launch attempt a year ago — the only time an orbital launch has been tried from continental Europe — flew for about 30 seconds before crashing. Its Spectrum rocket is expected to have a payload of only 1,000 kilograms.
Daniel Metzler, the company’s chief executive officer and co-founder, said that scrubs “are part of rocket industry,” and valuable experience is learned with each attempt.
“There is no question that we will reach orbit and demonstrate reliable access to space,” he said.
In the meantime, an ominous mass of orbital threats has been steadily growing over the years. Although nuclear weapons are prohibited by treaty from being deployed in orbit, other military moves are not off limits.
Some of the defense-related activity is well known: the first military satellite headed to orbit in the late 1950s, and now there are more than 600 overhead, according to data compiled by astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell. The concept of spy satellites recording images and sucking up communications signals is well-known.
In the last decade, however, capabilities that were seen as too costly or dead ends during the Cold War have begun to reappear.
India, China and Russia have all tested anti-satellite missiles that launch from the ground. The US last conducted such a test in 2008, destroying a satellite with a ship-launched SM-3 Block IIA missile, and has since declared a self-imposed moratorium on such exercises.
In 2021, China launched an object into orbit that later appeared to deploy or launch another object that fell back to Earth. Analysts said it was most likely a type of fractional orbital bombardment system, or FOBS, which puts a nuclear warhead into an orbit that allows it to strike a target on Earth at an unpredictable time and direction.
China’s test took the concept a step further, adding a hypersonic glide vehicle to the warhead to allow it to maneuver as it approached the target.
No other country has attempted such a test, but Russia deployed a short-lived FOBS system during the Cold War — ultimately abandoning it because other weapons, such as submarine-launched ballistic missiles, could accomplish the same thing.
“Things are a lot more tense up there than they were 10 years ago,” McDowell said. “You worry about people miscalculating.”
The US, China and Russia have deployed satellites that can maneuver in space, conducting close passes of other countries’ systems to document or manipulate them. Others float slowly just below geostationary orbit, listening to the signals emanating from communications and early warning satellites stationed there.
In April, a complex dance of “inspections” of satellites from all three countries broke out, orbital data show.
The first step: A Russian satellite sidled up to geostationary orbit, tens of thousands of miles above the Earth, and positioned itself among three Chinese commercial and military satellites — close enough to eavesdrop or collect images.
Then a US satellite came into the picture, boosted into an orbit that brought it as close as 13 kilometers from the Russian satellite twice every 24 hours. That guaranteed good lighting conditions for taking pictures or video.
Finally, another Chinese satellite — presumed to be purpose-built for inspections — parked itself in the cluster, and near another US military communications satellite.
Although there were no indications of impacts or tampering, the series of maneuvers show how the world’s three leading space powers are committing resources and precious maneuvering fuel to keep close tabs on each other’s orbital assets. And how other nations are at their mercy.
Germany witnessed interference to Bundeswehr systems by two Russian Luch-Olymp intelligence-gathering satellites last fall, according to Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, who said that both Moscow and Beijing have the ability to “disrupt, blind, manipulate or kinetically destroy satellites.”
On the eve of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, a Russian cyberattack on Viasat Inc.’s satellite network disabled modems across Europe and disrupted wide swaths of communications, knocking out thousands of wind turbines in Germany. Berlin has since pledged to invest €35 billion in defensive and offensive capabilities in space by 2030.
“Satellite networks today are an Achilles heel of modern society,” Pistorius said in September. “The conflicts of the future will no longer be confined to Earth, they’ll be carried out in orbit.”
Two years ago, US Congressman Mike Turner said Russia was experimenting with a plan to put nuclear anti-satellite weapons in orbit. The idea was to create a network of such devices that if a major war broke out, could be detonated to destroy or disable everything in a certain orbital band, according to Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.
It’s a claim since repeated by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.
“That’s the world we’re living in,” said Lewis. “Launch is cheap so you destroy everything and just replace it. And it’s better than losing the war.”
It looks rather different from a European perspective, where launches are neither cheap nor plentiful.
While Arianespace has a successful track record — and a full order book for payloads, including carrying Amazon.com Inc.’s Leo satellites — its launch center is halfway around the world in French Guiana.
That South American location for a strategic European facility looks less than optimal at a time when President Donald Trump wants to exercise US control over the western hemisphere.
It’s one reason to develop launch capabilities closer to home in continental Europe. What’s more, the prospect of being dependent for launch capacity on Musk, whose political allegiances have seen him campaign for far-right alternatives to European governments including in Germany and the UK, only adds to the drive toward self-reliance.
“Dependence on allies or commercial providers, including the United States’ Starlink, can be risky if critical services prove unavailable during crises,” Rand analysts Mélusine Lebret and James Black wrote in a recent report.
The most promising European venue is Andøya Spaceport, which hosted Isar Aerospace’s launch attempts.
Andøya, whose location at 69 degrees north allows easy access to polar orbits, traces its heritage to 1962, when its first launch was a collaboration between NASA, the Danish Meteorological Institute and the Norwegian defense and research establishment to study the Aurora Borealis.
Today it conducts a mix of civilian and military operations, and although it boasts of having sent up more than 1,200 scientific rockets, all were suborbital.
Olsen of Andøya Space says there is enough demand for continental European orbital launches to justify more than one spaceport.
“We are being called up by new launch vehicles and satellite brokers every week,” he said. “But first of all we have to figure it out and get that successful launch.”
Individually and collectively, European countries are trying to get in the game. Besides Germany, Poland is buying three synthetic aperture radar satellites from Finnish startup Iceye for €200 million and the UK has set aside £3.2 billion ($4.3 billion) for new space capabilities.
The UK in May also published the first photos from Noctis-1, a space telescope meant to keep tabs on friendly orbital systems.
France has more advanced programs in play, including small “bodyguard” systems to patrol around sensitive satellites — Yeux en Orbite pour un Demonstrateur Agile, or YODA — and is experimenting with using lasers on the ground or in space to interfere with hostile activity, said Xavier Pasco, Director of the Foundation for Strategic Research in France.
German company Rocket Factory Augsburg, or RFA, plans a launch this summer at a converted former Royal Air Force Base at SaxaVord in the Shetland Islands, the most northerly part of the UK, which is also vying to become a European hub.
RFA is a subsidiary of satellite maker OHB SE, also German, which is part of a bid with Airbus SE and Rheinmetall AG to build a satellite internet service for the German armed forces.
The EU, meanwhile, published its European Space Strategy for Security and Defence in 2022 and since then has switched on parts of its new IRIS2 and GOVSATCOM secure satellite communications network, part of a €10.6 billion push to provide an alternative to Starlink and wean itself off US support.
The IRIS2 network will eventually have 290 satellites in multiple orbits. It is scheduled to be fully operational by 2030, serving both private customers and governments. Luxembourg-based SES SA, France’s Eutelsat SA, and Spain’s Hispasat SA are building the satellites.
“European states are investing heavily in space surveillance capabilities,” said Captain Beatrice Hainaut of the French government’s Institute for Strategic Research. “After all, having active defense or offensive capabilities in space is one thing, but it is equally essential to know what is actually happening there.”
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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