By Lucy Craymer
WELLINGTON (Reuters) – The New Zealand Air Force will establish a small space squadron to signal its growing commitment to space-based defence and international security, a senior military official said on Wednesday.
Air Vice-Marshal Darryn Webb said the Air Force had a team already focused on space, but creating a squadron symbolized its growing significance.
“A space squadron essentially just formalises the fact that space is here with us now. It’s going to be more and more important into the future so let’s perhaps put a little bit of bricks and mortar around that and provide a mechanism to enhance that growth,” Webb, who is chief of the Air Force, told Reuters in an interview.
The space squadron will sit within the Air Force, but Webb said he would love to see Navy and Army involvement. It will be Squadron Number 62 – a nod to a radar squadron that served during World War Two and will have just 15 personnel when it is created on July 1.
New Zealand has just released a defence capability plan which outlines plans to boost defence spending to 2% of GDP over the next eight years, after decades of reduced funding.
The Air Force is expected to replace its aging Boeing 757 and Seasprite helicopters but there are no plans to reinstate a fighter jet programme, which was cut in 2001.
The squadron emerges as tensions rise over space infrastructure, with increasing concerns around risks to satellite security and potential disruptions to global communication networks.
New Zealand recently joined the U.S.-led Operation Olympic Defender, a seven-nation multinational space defence initiative. Webb said joining gave New Zealand a voice and view in the grouping about responsible space behaviour.
“Primarily, it is about ensuring the continued, free, safe and assured access to space-based services… through deterring any likely action that might occur,” Webb said.
He said part of the military’s role was to protect and defend strategic assets and “space is definitely one of those.” He did not specify which countries’ action were of concern.
Webb said what New Zealand could contribute to the operation was at an “evolving stage.”
“We clearly don’t have an enormous range of space-based capabilities. We rely on access of others. So that’s an important point. But we are unique in our location in the world,” Webb said, and wouldn’t rule out the use of New Zealand’s ground-based space infrastructure by foreign militaries in the future.
(Reporting by Lucy Craymer; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)
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