This report is one in a series on analyses of the effects that emerging technologies could have on U.S. Department of Homeland Security missions and capabilities. This report details the results of a technology and risk assessment that the authors conducted to assess the risks posed by the migration of critical infrastructure to the space domain, specifically with the migration of critical infrastructure to the space domain.

Emerging Technology and Risk Analysis

The Space Domain and Critical Infrastructure

Daniel M. Gerstein, Erin N. Leidy

ResearchPublished Mar 4, 2025

This report is one in a series on analyses of the effects that emerging technologies could have on U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) missions and capabilities. As part of this research, the authors were charged with developing a technology and risk assessment methodology for evaluating emerging technologies and understanding their implications within a homeland security context. The methodology and analyses provide a basis for DHS to better understand the emerging technologies and the risks they present.

Ensuring critical access to space is an economic and national security imperative. Given the department's broad homeland security responsibilities and authority (and as the largest law enforcement agency in the U.S. government), DHS has important equities for a wide variety of activities that depend on assured access to space, particularly in or related to the 16 critical infrastructure sectors.

The authors consider four attributes in assessing the technology: technology availability, and risks and scenarios (which authors divided into threats, vulnerabilities, and consequences). The risks and scenarios were provided by the DHS Office of Science and Technology and the DHS Office of Policy. The authors compared these four attributes across three periods — short term (up to three years), medium term (three to five years), and long term (five to ten years). Specifically, the authors consider advances in communications and imaging satellites, data centers and storage depots in space, research and development in space, additive manufacturing in space, commercial energy generation, and space mining over the next ten years.

Key Findings

  • Critical infrastructure will increasingly rely on space-based capabilities as satellites become more capable and cheaper to launch. However, this increasing reliance on space will result in a more contested, congested, and competitive environment that will cause critical infrastructure to be increasingly susceptible to a variety of risks.
  • Technology accessibility to space will likely undergo a steady progression over the ten-year study period. However, the maturity of the technologies will vary significantly. The risks (threats, vulnerabilities, and consequences) associated with space domain–critical infrastructure applications will likely not be fully felt until at-scale deployments of these systems occur.
  • Early applications could include a variety of activities. Space tourism could involve extended stays in space. Data centers in space are in the planning stages and will likely have demonstrations or prototypes being fielded over the next three to five years. Manufacturing and mining will likely not be available until the five- to ten-year time frame. Some applications, such as commercial energy generation and large-scale space mining, are unlikely to have progressed beyond the prototype and demonstration stages by the end of the ten-year study window.
  • The authors assessed that space science and technology maturity will continue to increase, resulting in new use cases, demand, and market forces that will drive further innovation. The recursive nature of technology means that, as successes are achieved in science and technology maturity, new use cases, demand, and market forces will be identified and vice versa.

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Citation

RAND Style Manual

Gerstein, Daniel M. and Erin N. Leidy, Emerging Technology and Risk Analysis: The Space Domain and Critical Infrastructure, Homeland Security Operational Analysis Center operated by the RAND Corporation, RR-A2875-1, 2025. As of April 30, 2025: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA2875-1.html

Chicago Manual of Style

Gerstein, Daniel M. and Erin N. Leidy, Emerging Technology and Risk Analysis: The Space Domain and Critical Infrastructure. Homeland Security Operational Analysis Center operated by the RAND Corporation, 2025. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA2875-1.html.
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This research was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate and conducted in the Management, Technology, and Capabilities Program of the Homeland Security Research Division (HSRD).

This publication is part of the RAND research report series. Research reports present research findings and objective analysis that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors. All RAND research reports undergo rigorous peer review to ensure high standards for research quality and objectivity.

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