OTTAWA—Canadian officials have “serious security concerns” over the increased presence of countries and private companies operating in the Earth’s orbit, documents obtained by the Star show.

Global Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion was warned in November that satellites enabling everything from telecommunications to national defence are facing a range of threats — from anti-satellite weaponry to pieces of junk floating around the planet.

“The viability of the space infrastructure is increasingly threatened by potential hostile acts from military or strategic opponents, space debris and space weather,” state the documents, obtained under access to information law and stamped “secret.”

“The challenge of protecting space infrastructure from both natural and man-made threats is compounded by the rapid expansion of both the number of space-faring nations and the uses to which space assets are put.”

Department officials note that Canada is “highly dependent” on the network of satellites orbiting Earth for communications and surveillance, weather forecasting, search and rescue, and even urban planning.

The documents note during the Cold War, both the United States and the U.S.S.R. tested anti-satellite weaponry, with varying degrees of success. More recently, China in 2007 and the U.S. in 2008 achieved the capability to destroy satellites in what is called, low Earth orbit. According to NASA, low Earth obit is 180 km to 2,000 km above the Earth’s surface.

Canada relies on satellites in low Earth orbit, such as the RADARSAT-2 satellite which provides surveillance for National Defence. Taking out a country’s eyes in the sky could present challenges for that country to strike back.

But it’s not just nation states that are increasingly active in outer space. New hopes for commercializing space travel have emerged in recent years, including PayPal founder Elon Musk’s SpaceX company and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin.

According to the documents, Canadian officials are concerned about the “dual-use” nature of space technology — meaning tech that can be repurposed from its original intention to perform other, potentially dangerous functions.

“The private sector is increasingly commercializing outer space and performing activities traditionally undertaken by governments, which are creating concerns due to the dual-use nature of many space-related technologies,” the document reads.

The Star requested an interview with Global Affairs for this article, but no one was available on Tuesday.

In a written statement, a department spokesperson wrote that Canada is currently chairing a United Nations committee on the peaceful use of outer space.

“Canada is working with the international community, including at the United Nations and its specialized bodies . . . (to promote) the adoption of measures which would help solidify international norms in space to ensure the safe, secure and sustainable use of outer space,” Rachna Mishra wrote in an email to the Star.

Paul Meyer, a fellow at Simon Fraser University who served in Canada’s foreign service for more than three decades, said there appears to be a “revived interest” in the federal government to pursue space security issues.

“Canada used to be quite involved in issues relating to outer space,” Meyer said in an interview Tuesday.

“More recently, (there’s been) advocacy, active advocacy of the non-weaponization of outer space. This is a kind of key concept: yes, there are military uses in outer space, in terms of satellites that have military functions, but up to now it hasn’t become a weaponized environment.”

Meyer said when states talk about the “weaponization” of outer space, they’re usually talking about weapons that can target other countries’ satellites — not, say, some kind of superlaser that could be trained on planetary targets.

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“There are some more sci-fi prospects that have come up, from time to time, of having a space-based weapon system that would direct its weapons down to the ground. But frankly . . . they face a much greater technical problems, they’re not really practical at this time,” Meyer said.

The documents note that space issues have been on the G8, later the G7, agenda since 2012. In 2015, the G7 called for a legally binding treaty committing countries to comprehensive and verifiable rules on the use of outer space.

A joint Russian-Chinese proposal for such a treaty has faltered due to an “insufficient” definition of what constitutes a “space weapon,” the documents state.

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