Australia should expand its sovereign space capabilities to keep pace with the growing military and technological ambitions of China and Russia, a former U.S. Air Force officer told a defence technology conference in Queensland on Sept. 9.
Charlie McGillis spoke at the Reveille defence tech conference in Gold Coast, which is backed by Beaten Zone Venture Partners, the firm of tech investor and former Shark Tank judge Steve Baxter. She told the audience of defence tech innovators and investors that space is a contested domain and that the things being witnessed there today have no precedent, and will only become more complex.
She urged Australia to build sovereign capability across the full spectrum of what operations require, naming satellites, ground infrastructure, launch sites, and the workforce and training systems needed to sustain all of it.
The Chinese robotic arm example
McGillis highlighted a specific example of the kind of capability Australia and its allies are contending with. She pointed to a Chinese satellite equipped with a robotic arm capable of grabbing and relocating another craft. She warned that the same capability could potentially be used against another country’s craft in orbit, repurposing a civilian or dual-use technology as a weapon or interference tool.
The example illustrates the grey zone nature of modern orbital competition, where the line between peaceful and military capability is increasingly blurred. A craft that can move another could just as easily be characterized as a servicing platform as an offensive system, which is part of what makes the domain so difficult to govern.
The sovereignty argument
The push for sovereign capability rather than reliance on allied space infrastructure is a recurring theme in Australian defence policy discussions. Australia currently depends heavily on the United States and other Five Eyes partners for intelligence derived from space assets. Developing domestic assets, ground stations and launch capability would reduce that dependency and give Australia independent options in a crisis.
McGillis’s presence at an investor-facing conference reflects the growing role of private capital in the defence sector globally. Much of the innovation in small orbital platforms, launch vehicles and situational awareness is now happening in commercial companies rather than government programs, and the investor community is increasingly a stakeholder in the outcome.
The broader warning
Her warnings about Beijing and Moscow are consistent with what Western defence officials have been saying publicly for several years, and with the shift in NATO and AUKUS planning toward treating orbit as an operational domain rather than a support function.
Australia’s geography gives it natural advantages for orbital surveillance and launch, including clear skies, a southern hemisphere perspective that complements northern hemisphere tracking networks, and proximity to oceanic corridors that are becoming increasingly contested.
