The Emerging Importance of Space in the Arctic 

“The Arctic is a region of extremes - extreme conditions, extreme logistics, and extreme opportunity.” 

Daniel Guhl, President, Solvest, Yukon Territory, Canada 

This January, I had the incredible opportunity to join the Arctic Frontiers Emerging Leaders program. Thanks to support from the United States Embassy in Oslo, I joined 29 other young Arctic professionals and researchers on a trip across Norway. Hailing from over a dozen countries, this group featured scientists, officers, entrepreneurs, lawyers, students, and activists. Alaska Native, Canadian First Nation, Métis, Canadian Inuit, Greenlandic Inuit, and Sami indigenous groups were all represented. Along our journey, we shared our perspectives, our stories, our languages and cultures, and many, many meals, beers, and buses. After visiting Bodø, Andøya, and Sommarøy, we completed our trip in Tromsø, where we presented our collective thoughts on the challenges facing the region at the Arctic Frontiers conference.  

But I had my own, parallel mission. With the Aurora Borealis dancing overhead, my thoughts were on the stars. While listening to the challenges faced by Arctic nations and communities, I was searching for a common thread: how can space technologies help?

As a “Non-Arctic Person” living in Washington, DC - I often joke that I was born a thousand miles from the ocean in Missouri and then decided to go live in the deserts of Arabia before ever setting foot in the Arctic - I have an outsider's perspective. Many of my fellow Emerging Leaders have spent their entire lives in the region, and their roots go deep, through countless generations and time immemorial. My experience in the Arctic began only within the last couple years, after a research project in Greenland and Canada. My expertise is the space industry and its geopolitical implications, and I’ve viewed the Arctic through this lens in recent writing.  

In short, the Arctic today faces extreme challenges. Climate change continues to threaten communities by wildfire, erosion, and diminishing sea ice. Political tensions with Russia have returned to Cold War-levels, NATO has expanded, and an ascendent competitor in China seeks local influence. A new administration in the United States (President Trump was inaugurated for his second term during our trip) has already brought American Arctic relations back into the headlines. My thesis is that exploration of the Final Frontier can benefit the Arctic Frontier. Satellites can provide communications and navigation infrastructure to remote communities, while gathering critical data for understanding weather and climate conditions. Commercial space is a growing industry that can foster international relationships and grow local economies. Space security and Arctic security are intrinsically connected and enhancing one can support the other. Space technology is not a silver bullet and will not be the solution to all our problems. But, when used responsibly, there are potentially infinite ways space can help address the extreme challenges in the Arctic. Here are real examples, told through the lens of our trip through Norway.   

Bodø: Life and Death 

67.2 Degrees N 

“There are only two things to do in Bodø: live (bo) and die (dø).” 

Classic Norwegian joke

Image Credit

Shutterstock/Melander

 

Our trip began in Bodø, one of the European Capitals of Culture for 2024. On our first day, the local football team FK Bodø/Glimt was slated to play Maccabi Tel Aviv FC in the Europa League. When I arrived the night before, a group of determined protesters held signs outside the airport, braving the below-freezing temperatures. On game day, a larger group paraded through the streets, waving Palestinian flags and setting off fireworks, while we Emerging Leaders met for the first time. Maybe the protests worked - the home team won 3-1. 

Bodø has found its way into other global conflicts. During WWII, the town was heavily bombed by Germany. It was rebuilt with a bigger airfield, which became the home of the NATO Quick Reaction Alert mission for decades (until 2022) and played a key role in Cold War strategy. Today, Bodø hosts the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre (JRCC) of Northern Norway, the organization responsible for all search and rescue activities in Norway’s territory north of the Arctic Circle. This is the command center of Norway’s battle against the Arctic elements.  

Our visit to this JRCC had three sections. First, we were briefed by a senior advisor from the Norwegian Armed Forces on the country’s strategic considerations and how they’ve changed since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2014 and again in 2022. Then, a senior Norwegian Coast Guard official gave us a tour of the watch center and an overview of their operations. The official noted the Arctic Satellite Broadband Mission, a recent joint US-Norwegian communications project that launched in August 2024 (and which was mentioned frequently during our trip) but complained that its limited bandwidth is only available for military use. For civil government and civilian use, he praised Starlink, available on ship and shore.   

Then, our own Emerging Leader US Coast Guard LT Dan, presented case studies of rescue cases from Alaska (featuring data from fellow Coastie and Emerging Leader LT Sam). His district, District 17 in Juneau, covers an area practically the size of Europe, from south Alaska to the Aleutian Islands and through the Bering Strait. Among D17, they refer to the “Tyranny of Distance” - the sheer magnitude of the area they must cross to reach ships in distress. In emergency situations in the Arctic, they suggest you need to survive for an average of five days to be rescued. 

Space technologies are no substitute for crossing thousands of miles with aircraft, ships, and highly trained rescue teams. They can, however, provide consistent connectivity between ships in distress and potential rescuers, while providing improved situational awareness to the Coast Guard through satellite-based ship and aircraft tracking and weather monitoring. The International Cospas-Sarsat Program, an intergovernmental organization of 45 nations which operates a constellation of 65 satellites, detects, locates, and broadcasts the location of emergency beacons around the globe. Since first used during a rescue in 1982, Cospas-Sarsat has supported over 18,000 search and rescue events, helping to save the lives of more than 60,000 people. Someday, satellites could even deliver emergency supplies from orbit.  

Even just reliable communications for remote communities can be a lifeline. After our visit to JRCC, we convened at a local art museum to hear presentations from community leaders and some of our Emerging Leaders on health programs in the Arctic. After learning about the Norwegian remote health program, Kevin provided us an overview of the Alaska Native Health System; then Taya gave a moving, personal account of her family and Inuit community in Iqaluit, Nunavut. In all of these cases, reliable internet connections played a key role. Taya related her own odyssey of obtaining mental health care in the North, with appointments taking months due to rotating, “fly-in” providers, who changed month-to-month. Consistent and affordable internet, provided by satellite and paired with adequate remote health access, could literally save lives. 

Andøya: Sea and Space 

69.3 Degrees N 

Middle Atmosphere Alomar Radar System: MAARSY

Our next stop was the island of Andøya. We arrived at night, saw our first collective Northern Lights, then stopped by the local “brown pub” - where we met the self-proclaimed mayor of the nearby town, Andenes.  

In the morning, our first stop was Andfjord Salmon. Andfjord is an in-development aquaculture project, combining elements of offshore net-pen salmon farming and land-based approaches. The founder gave us his pitch, then was subjected to nearly two hours of grilling. I don’t think he expected to have two fish parasite researchers, an advisor for the Norwegian Fishermen's Association, a PhD candidate in seafood science, and a marine biologist studying alternative fish oil sources in the audience. Norwegians take their salmon seriously.  

Image Credit

Wilson Center/David Marsh

 

We then bussed across the island to visit the Andøya Space Center. Located on the northwestern coast of the island, with jagged mountains just behind, this is the highly touted future of European rocket launches. Long a site for sounding (sub-orbital) rocket and stratospheric balloon launches (NASA and the US Department of Defense have used the island for decades), the Norwegian government has invested in building an orbital launch pad. When operational, it will be the first on the European continent. Other European rocket companies, like ArianeSpace, currently travel to Kourou in French Guiana to launch near the equator, bringing their rockets by ship. Andøya, with tens of thousands of square kilometers of sea to the north and a runway suitable for large military cargo aircraft to quickly deliver rockets and satellites, is a perfect candidate for launching payloads into polar orbits. Andøya also features other impressive radar capabilities for weather monitoring, critical for rocket launches from above the Arctic Circle. Isar Aerospace, a rocket startup from Germany, is set to be the first company to launch from the new pad later this year (Godspeed!). 

Andøya Space has positioned itself as a strategic capability for a Norway that sees space, and closer cooperation with the United States, as a national advantage. Just before our Emerging Leaders trip, the US and Norway signed a historic Technology Safeguard Agreement to allow American rocket technology at the spaceport. This strategic relationship is wrapped up within a commercial veneer: Andøya Space is a public-private partnership, 90% owned by the Norwegian Ministry of Trade and Industry, 10% owned by Kongsberg Defense. Andoya Space is launching a “NewSpace North” innovation center program and Innovation Norway (including Emerging Leader program coordinator Fredrik) works eagerly to attract other space startups to the region. Even if the project is slow to generate profits, it is a strategic investment in Norway’s future space industry. Consider how much money the United States government has spent on the spaceport at Cape Canaveral, without which commercial space giants SpaceX and Blue Origin would likely not exist. 

Andøya’s role in space stretches all the way from orbit down to the sea floor. The island is a terminal for submarine fiber optic cables which connect Svalbard, home to the largest commercial satellite ground station on Earth, to the Norwegian mainland and the internet. This Svalbard facility, known as SvalSat, is operated by Kongsberg Satellite (KSAT), a Norwegian state-owned company with ground stations all around the world (a KSAT employee, Edvard, was an Emerging Leader this year). These ground stations communicate with satellites in orbit, sending commands and receiving data downlinks, before routing that data to satellite owners. SvalSat, located at 78 degrees North, is ideal for communicating with satellites in polar orbits, which send down massive amounts of imagery, remote sensing, and telemetry data. Without the submarine cables, however, communications must be re-transmitted by other satellites, which significantly lowers the available bandwidth. These cables are vulnerable: the Svalbard cables were severed in 2022, and recent weeks have seen more incidents in the Baltic Sea. In order to remedy this vulnerability, improved satellite backup projects are being developed, and KSAT is building a new ground station on Andøya itself. 

This quiet island may soon find itself a bustling commercial space hub, or at the center of a future space conflict - I hope the mayor of Andenes is ready.