美国转而反对乌克兰的最强烈信号，本月来自外太空。乌克兰无人机与埃隆·马斯克旗下卫星互联网服务“星链”的连接，在时速超过160公里时中断。俄罗斯弹道导弹击中基辅，却未出现美军侦察卫星通常会发出的预警。乌克兰的欧洲盟友反应极度忧虑。欧洲防务首长只能为乌克兰提供美国情报和通信网络的部分替代方案。他们担心自身对美国太空能力的依赖，担心若俄罗斯发动攻击这些能力是否仍可用，以及他们能多快开发出自己的替代方案。
THE STRONGEST signals that America is turning against Ukraine have come, this month, from outer space. Ukrainian drones’ connections to Starlink, Elon Musk’s satellite-internet service, cut out at speeds above 160kph. Russian ballistic missiles smacked into Kyiv without the usual warnings from American spy satellites. Ukraine’s European allies reacted with deep foreboding. European defence chiefs can offer Ukraine only partial substitutes for American intelligence and communications networks. And they worry about their own dependence on America’s space-based capabilities, about whether these will stay available if Russia attacks and about how quickly they can develop their own alternatives.
所有这些都在加速替代方案的开发。乌克兰宣布“星链”受限的第二天，其最接近的欧洲竞争对手Eutelsat（优特尔卫星）股价飙升23%。欧盟随即推动加速欧洲三大航天企业卫星业务合并的监管审批进程，该进程此前进展极其缓慢，旨在打造一家足以与马斯克的SpaceX（太空探索技术公司）竞争的巨头。10月19日，该地区四大电信企业表示，希望与一家卫星公司合作，以对抗“星链”。
All this is hastening efforts to develop alternatives. The day after Ukraine said restrictions had been placed on Starlink, shares in its closest European competitor, Eutelsat, surged by 23%. The European Union then moved to speed up the glacial pace of regulatory approval for merging the satellite businesses of Europe’s three largest space companies, hoping to create one big enough to compete with Mr Musk’s SpaceX. And on October 19th four of the region’s largest telecommunications firms said they wanted to partner with a satellite company to compete with Starlink.
然而，欧洲在实现所谓“太空自主”方面仍有漫漫长途。在三个关键领域，它依赖美国。第一是面向平民和武装部队的卫星互联网服务。第二是用于国防的空基情报、监视与侦察（ISR）及预警。第三是发射能力：将大量卫星送入轨道所需的火箭和航天港。
Yet Europe has a long way to go before it can hope to achieve “autonomy in space”, as the jargon has it. In three crucial areas, it depends on America. The first is satellite-internet service for civilians and the armed forces. The second is space-based intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and early warning for defence. And the third is launch capacity: the rockets and spaceports needed to put a large number of satellites into orbit.
几十年来，欧洲与美国在国防领域的太空差距最大。美国部分地通过让盟友“免费搭乘”SBIRS（基于空间的红外系统）等项目——一个耗资180亿美元的导弹预警星座——维持了欧洲的依赖。
For decades, the space gap between Europe and America was widest in defence. America kept Europe dependent in part by letting its allies freeload on programmes such as SBIRS, an $18bn missile-warning constellation.
但美国也反对欧洲发展自身能力的努力。它最初试图阻止卫星导航系统“伽利略”（Galileo），理由是它将与美国自己的GPS卫星竞争，并可能被其敌人使用。
But America also opposed Europe’s efforts to develop its own capabilities. It initially tried to block Galileo, a satellite navigation system, on the grounds that it would compete with America’s own GPS satellites, and could be used by its enemies.
然而，目前最大的差距在于卫星互联网，美国在这一领域已迅猛领先。欧洲对“星链”（Starlink）最接近的替代方案是“一网”（OneWeb），其母公司欧洲通信卫星公司（Eutelsat）部分由法国和英国政府所有。（英国在该公司于2020年破产后对其进行了纾困，两国去年都注入了更多资金。）“一网”成立于2012年，比“星链”早三年，但很快就被后者超越：作为马斯克（Mr Musk）世界领先的火箭公司SpaceX的一个部门，“星链”拥有充足的资金来推动其大规模扩张（见图表）。
Now, however, the biggest gap is in satellite internet, where America has rocketed ahead. Europe’s closest answer to Starlink is OneWeb, whose parent company, Eutelsat, is partly owned by the French and British governments. (Britain bailed the firm out after it collapsed in 2020, and both countries injected more capital last year.) OneWeb was founded in 2012, three years before Starlink, but was rapidly eclipsed by it: as a division of SpaceX, Mr Musk’s world-beating rocket company, Starlink had plenty of cash to fuel its massive expansion (see chart).
其他私营公司的进入可能会扩大美国的领先优势。亚马逊的Leo旨在今年晚些时候提供卫星互联网服务。
The entry of other private firms may widen America’s lead. Amazon’s Leo aims to offer satellite internet later this year.
“一网”在乌克兰拥有多座终端，其中一些由德国出资购买，并被包括法国和英国海军在内的多个欧洲军队使用。它还部署在一些空中和海上无人机上。但它并非“星链”的直接替代品。“一网”拥有约600颗卫星；“星链”则拥有超过1万颗。欧洲的系统无法在任何一个地区传输那么多数据或服务那么多用户。而且，由于其卫星轨道要高得多，用户需要更大的终端，其中最便宜的售价约为9000美元——大约是基础版“星链”终端的45倍。
OneWeb has a number of terminals in Ukraine, some paid for by Germany, and is used by several European armed forces, including the French and British navies. It is also deployed on some aerial and naval drones. But it is not a direct replacement for Starlink. OneWeb has about 600 satellites; Starlink has more than 10,000. The European system cannot carry as much data or serve as many users in any one area. And because its satellites are in a much higher orbit, users need bigger terminals, the cheapest of which cost around $9,000—roughly 45 times more than a basic Starlink terminal.
欧盟最高外交官卡娅·卡拉斯（Kaja Kallas）在10月16日会见泽连斯基之前承认了这一点：“‘星链’对乌克兰确实必不可少，不幸的是，短期内欧洲无法取代这种能力。”
Kaja Kallas, the EU’s top diplomat, acknowledged this before meeting Mr Zelensky on October 16th: “Starlink is really necessary for Ukraine and unfortunately in the short term Europe can’t replace this capability.”
欧盟计划斥资150亿欧元（约合170亿美元）打造IRIS 2，这是一个由348颗通信卫星组成的星座，供其成员国政府和军队使用。但第一颗卫星要到2029年才会发射。
The EU plans to spend €15bn ($17bn) on IRIS 2, a constellation of 348 communications satellites to be used by its members’ governments and armed forces. But the first will be launched only in 2029.
与此同时，德国计划建立自己的军事通信卫星网络，包含100颗卫星，成本约为100亿欧元。这引发了对重复建设和碎片化的担忧。
Germany, meanwhile, plans its own network of 100 military-communications satellites at a cost of around €10bn. That has led to concerns of duplication and fragmentation.
在第二个关注领域——基于空间的情报、监视和侦察（ISR）——上，情况更为乐观，这主要得益于欧洲私营新兴企业，它们生产小型侦察卫星的速度远快于空中客车等传统公司。瑞典太空军总司令安德斯·桑德曼海军上将表示，如果一年前有人问他该国首颗间谍卫星何时能发射，他会预计是2030年。“我们今年就发射了，”他说（尽管发射是在美国猎鹰9号拼车任务中进行的）。
There is more encouraging news when it comes to the second area of concern, space-based ISR, mainly thanks to private European newcomers that produce small surveillance satellites much faster than legacy firms such as Airbus. Admiral Anders Sundeman, the head of Sweden’s space force, says that if asked a year ago how long it would take to launch his country’s first spy satellite, he would have estimated 2030. “We launched it instead this year,” he says (though the launch happened on an American Falcon 9 ride-share flight).
这颗卫星由芬兰初创公司Iceye制造，该公司已找到方法，将曾经像汽车一样大的雷达卫星缩小到洗衣机大小。Iceye已将80颗卫星送入轨道，并计划明年将产量翻倍至100颗。瑞典还与美国初创公司Planet Labs签署协议，购买小型间谍卫星；该公司最近在德国开设了一家工厂。
It was made by Iceye, a Finnish startup that has figured out how to shrink radar satellites that were once as big as a car down to the size of a washing machine. Iceye has put 80 into orbit and plans to double its production rate to 100 next year. Sweden has also signed a deal to buy small spy satellites from Planet Labs, an American startup that recently opened a factory in Germany.
拥有大量像这样的小型、廉价卫星，使得应对因干扰或攻击而损失少数几颗卫星的风险变得更容易。这是一个真实风险。10月中旬，一颗俄罗斯卫星机动进入与一颗为乌克兰提供情报的Iceye卫星非常接近的轨道。然而，即使乌克兰的卫星被瘫痪，该国还有另外两颗，并可获取多颗欧洲卫星提供的情报。
Having lots of small, cheap satellites like these makes it easier to cope with losing a few to jamming, or to attack. That is a real risk. In mid-October a Russian satellite manoeuvred into a very close orbit with one made by Iceye that provides intelligence for Ukraine. Yet even if Ukraine’s satellite is disabled, the country has two more, along with access to intelligence from a number of European ones.
其他美国能力将需要更长时间才能替代。其中之一是弹道导弹预警系统。法国和德国正联手建造此类卫星，但要到2030年代初才能投入使用。欧洲也无法匹敌美国部署的用于保护友军卫星和摧毁敌方卫星的传感器和轨道武器。
Other American capabilities will take far longer to replace. One is a ballistic-missile warning system. France and Germany are teaming up to build such satellites, but they will not come online until the early 2030s. Neither can Europe match the sensors and orbital weapons America deploys to protect friendly satellites and destroy hostile ones.
最后，如果欧洲没有足够的发射能力将卫星送入轨道，那么它的任何计划都无法奏效。
Finally, none of Europe’s plans will work if it does not have enough launch capacity to put its satellites in orbit.
阿丽亚娜航天公司是一家主要由空中客车公司和赛峰集团拥有的欧洲企业，能够将重型有效载荷送入轨道。但它发射的火箭数量远少于太空探索技术公司，成本也高得多，这就解释了为什么许多冰眼公司和同一网公司的卫星都是由这家美国公司送入太空的。即便抛开地缘政治不谈，这种依赖也令人担忧：随着太空探索技术公司逐步退役其主力火箭“猎鹰9号”，运载能力正面临迫在眉睫的短缺。
Arianespace, a European company owned mainly by Airbus and Safran, can fly heavy payloads into orbit. But it launches far fewer rockets than SpaceX and at much higher cost, which explains why many Iceye and OneWeb satellites were carried into space by the American firm. Even setting geopolitics aside, this dependence is worrying: there is a looming shortage of capacity as SpaceX gradually retires the Falcon 9 rocket, its workhorse.
如果欧洲国家希望压低其火箭价格，它们就需要承诺长期的开支计划，以便让现有企业进行投资，同时鼓励竞争。欧洲空间局有一项9亿欧元的“发射器挑战赛”，向达成成功发射轨道等里程碑的企业提供资金。但一旦这些企业证明自己能够做到这一点，它们就需要订单。欧洲航天工业贸易机构秘书长奥利维耶·勒迈特表示：“如果你希望你的发射器尽可能便宜，你就需要非常规律地发射它。”
If European countries hope to drive down the price of their rockets, they will need to commit to long-term spending plans to allow incumbents to invest, while also encouraging competition. The European Space Agency has a €900m “launcher challenge”, which pays companies if they achieve milestones such as a successful orbital launch. But once they prove they can do it, they need orders. “If you want your launcher to be as cheap as possible you need to launch it very regularly,” says Olivier Lemaitre, the secretary-general of Eurospace, a trade body.
他说，如果需求依然很小，该行业将永远无法实现规模经济。欧洲迈向太空自主的倒计时不会永远持续下去。
If demand remains small, he says, the industry will never achieve economies of scale. Europe’s countdown towards space autonomy will not last forever.