New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) space operators have helped test how to detect an attack on a commercial satellite in a US military-led exercise.

The US Space Force called Exercise Salitre in Chile last month a "milestone".

Operators from South America, NATO, Korea and New Zealand tracked a simulated attack on a real satellite which maneuvred to get away.

The joined-up "around-the-clock coalition watch" was a first for the Space Force's southern command, its website said.

The watchers passed the "picture" on to each other across three continents as overhead a pretend aggressor spacecraft went after the real satellite.

"This milestone demonstrates that security in the space domain is a team sport," said commander of Space Forces Southern Colonel Brandon Alford.

Air forces were also involved. Their integration with the space side multinationally was "exactly how we prepare for the future of combat", said another officer.

The watching was done by Joint Commercial Operations (JCO) hubs.

New Zealand hosted one of three JCO hubs globally set up and largely funded by the US, that pulled in space-monitoring data from 20 countries with a focus on commercial rather than military activity worldwide. Chile has just joined.

The website said the space support ranged from weather reports to providing satellite images of exercise target areas.

The JCOs share a lot of space-watching information with hundreds of civilian organisations and industry in many countries, though lately the Pentagon has been expanding the military side of what they do. The NZDF said last year it was not involved in that expansion.

As the hubs expand geographically not just to Chile but also to Brazil, Argentina and Colombia, the US has been training their space operators on the basics of spacecraft maneuvering, how to intercept satellites and defence measures.

The Pentagon has been on a big and growing push to integrate other countries and commercial space operators into its satellite and other space efforts, some of them centred on missile detection, tracking or targeting.

Salitre was part of a campaign to build "enduring, interoperable space partnerships across the Americas and beyond", the Space Force said.