Denmark joins NATO space surveillance collaboration program

By Ebad Ahmed

PRAGUE (AA) - Denmark will share surveillance information gathered from space with NATO members as the country joined the Alliance Persistent Surveillance from Space (APSS) program, the Defense Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

The agreement was signed by Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen during the NATO summit in Washington. “NATO is the world’s strongest defense alliance and it is in Denmark’s interest in every way to be closely aligned with our allies and the alliance on defense policies,” he said.

The minister added: “The cooperation will be an important supplement to the support of the Armed Forces' needs and at the same time contribute to making NATO's overall coverage more resilient."

The APSS program seeks to promote the sharing of intelligence information gained through space surveillance across the alliance, according to a NATO press release.

It further said: “The framework for cooperation builds on existing NATO policies and is consistent with NATO's broader efforts in this area.”

It added: "APSS has now transitioned into the implementation phase in which over the next five years, 17 allies are contributing the equivalent of more than $1 billion to leverage commercial and national space assets, and to expand advanced exploitation capacities."

Along with Denmark, the program's other signatories include Türkiye, Belgium, Canada, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Sweden, France, and the US.