During the Cold War, the US tested a slew of anti-satellite weapons, including detonating a nuclear weapon in space, which damaged a Soviet satellite. However, only recently has Washington worried that space was becoming militarized - now that other nations are developing similar capabilities.

On Tuesday, Germany became the latest NATO power to inaugurate a separate space command, following the United States’ delimitation of space as a warfighting domain in need of a separate branch of the armed forces dedicated to preserving US supremacy in it.

In a speech at the German Space Situational Awareness Centre in Uedem, Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said "space has become a critical infrastructure that we need to secure.”

In a separate statement, the defense ministry said it was “responding to the increasing significance of space for our state’s ability to function, the prosperity of our population, and the increasing dependency of the armed forces on space-supported data, services and products.”

Germany has just six satellites in orbit; by comparison, the US has by far the world’s largest number of satellites at 1,897, according to a January 2021 count.

Kramp-Karrenbauer said the new command’s main job will be protecting satellites from both enemy threats and more innocent dangers, such as space debris. According to the European Space Agency, Uedem is already tracking roughly 30,000 pieces of orbital debris with a diameter of 4 inches or greater, which could seriously damage or destroy a satellite if it were to impact it.