Australia's first space commander has conceded the nation is lagging "far behind" in the emerging military domain, while admitting China and Russia's ability to take out satellites "scares" her.
The Defence Space Command, which combines resources from the RAAF, Navy and Army, has been officially launched on Tuesday and is headed by Air Vice-Marshal Catherine Roberts.
"I am so happy to be launched, it's been a long time coming," she told reporters at the Air and Space Conference in Canberra.
Air Vice-Marshal Roberts now commands over 100 staff from a new headquarters in Canberra, where Defence is already developing both "kinetic and non-kinetic" capabilities to take out the assets of potential enemies far above Earth.
"I think it's really important that we start contributing, we've got a couple of little satellites up there but space domain awareness is where we can start, and we need to operationalise it because we are so far behind," Air Vice-Marshal Roberts said.
Australia is closely tracking the Chinese satellite SJ21, which successfully removed another of the country's satellites from orbit earlier this year, sparking alarm from the United States and its allies.
In November, Russia also caused global shock when it destroyed one of its old satellites in an anti-satellite missile test.
"I think the activities by China and Russia, which have been fairly well documented in the public domain, scare me," Air Vice-Marshal Roberts said.
"I think that our lack of capability at the moment against those threats is concerning, but I have a great ally [the United States]."
Defence Minister Peter Dutton said Australia would one day need its own Space Force, akin to that created by former US president Donald Trump.
America's Space Force commander, General James Dickinson, who was on hand for the launch of Australia's Space Command, said Australia was vital for US operations.
"It really takes the allies and partners around the world to provide their capabilities to that architecture, and Australia has great geography for that," he said.
"Look at one, how big it is, two, where it is in the world in the southern hemisphere, and what those capabilities can bring to bear in terms of providing space domain awareness to us."
Australian National University space law expert Dr Cassandra Steer welcomed the creation of Space Command but warned Australia must proceed carefully.
"It's an exciting time for Australia as a middle power to be increasing our presence in space, but we do need to be wary of using any language or policy or strategic language that could be seen to be escalatory," she said.
"We really need to assert ourself as a responsible space middle power."
