Latest news with #spacewarfare
Telegraph
26-06-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
How China is winning the military space race
China is developing 'breathtakingly fast', the United States has warned. Gen Stephen Whiting, the top commander of the US Space Force (USSF), said China's use of space to complete its 'kill chain' – the process of identifying, tracking and attacking a target – had become 'very concerning'. Space warfare capabilities are increasingly critical to the defence strategies of major powers. The United States, China and Russia are locked in an arms race to develop space technology and Donald Trump's administration is planning a 'Golden Dome' network of space-based interceptors to block missiles fired towards the US. Gen Whiting identified three areas of serious concern, where China has advanced rapidly: its space-based targeting system, its space counter-weapons and its integration of space capabilities with its conventional military. Space-based targeting systems Beijing's space-based targeting system, can be used to 'track and target US and allied forces in the Indo-Pacific', Gen Whiting told the Breaking Defence news outlet. These systems can be used to support 'over-the-horizon' precision strikes on US military targets, he said. Gen Anthony Mastalir, commander of USSF in the Indo-Pacific, has also previously said that China's long-range weapons, including those specifically aimed at targeting the US and its allies, 'depend on space'. He added that space tech was how China 'closes its kill chain' and strikes its targets with precision. By the end of last year, China had more than 500 satellites capable of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), according to the USSF. In the last decade, Beijing has deployed nearly 900 satellites into orbit. Of the 260 launched last year, 67 were capable of ISR. Earlier this year, Chinese scientists developed what was hailed as the world's most powerful satellite tracking camera, capable of capturing images with millimetre-level accuracy from over 100 kilometres away. Counter-weapons and jamming The second way in which China is moving quickly in space is through the development of counter-weapons, or weapons that destroy or jam other satellites, either launched from the ground or from space. According to Gen Whiting, these include 'reversible cyber-attacks, Satcom [satellite communications] and GPS-jamming' as well as high-energy lasers, direct ascent anti-satellite (Da-Sat) rockets, missiles and co-orbital Asats. Asats are satellites put into orbit to threaten other satellites. Da-Asat rockets are an important part of China's growing military arsenal in space. As far back as 2008, China was known to have been capable of shooting down satellites with missiles launched from the ground. Over the last 20 years, it has conducted several such anti-satellite tests. In March, the USSF said Chinese satellites were making controlled synchronised manoeuvres – satellites moving around each other in orbit while in formation. Gen Michael A Guetlein, the deputy chief of US operations at the USSF, said at the time that this showed China was 'practising tactics, techniques, and procedures to do on-orbit space operations from one satellite to another'. Beijing is known to have between one and three of these programmes, which can also be used to launch kinetic kill vehicles (a weapon based solely on its own kinetic energy) to target objects in space, or co-ordinate collisions. Destroying satellites in orbit puts other satellites at risk by creating debris fields, but jamming can be used to break down capabilities without creating hazards. Jamming technology targets the electronic link between a satellite and its user, putting it out of action without destroying it. Experts have previously warned that the US would be underprepared for attacks involving GPS jamming or 'spoofing', which is when a GPS receiver is manipulated or misled. These technologies can be used to disable munitions, redirect drones and missiles and shut down critical infrastructures. Integration with conventional forces The final area of concern for the US, said Gen Whiting, is China's integration of space capabilities into its conventional army, air force and navy. Gen Whiting said that in 'using space-enabled services' Beijing has made its armed forces ' more lethal, more precise and more far-ranging '. During a major strategic overhaul in 2016, China's military, the People's Liberation Army, added a military aerospace unit to its Strategic Support Force, which was established to oversee 'information-ised conflicts'. In April 2024, the force was split into three independent units: a dedicated aerospace force, a cyberspace army and an information support arm. All this suggests that China is catching up with America. While the US is estimated to have around 8,000 satellites in space, compared with China's 1,000, each nation has about 250 military satellites. In March, Gen Guetlein said: 'There used to be a significant capability gap between the United States and our adversaries, driven by our technological advantage. That gap, once massive, has narrowed considerably. 'If we don't change our approach to space operations, we risk seeing that gap reverse, putting us at a disadvantage.' In May, the US signalled a renewed focus on space-based weapons with the announcement of Mr Trump's golden dome project. The $175 billion (£147 billion) proposal aims to create a network of satellites by 2029 that will detect, track and shoot down missiles fired at the US. This system would probably only cover the US. Should America and China be drawn into a conflict, in Taiwan for example, China could not only have home advantage, but the advantage in space as well.
Telegraph
07-06-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
The British military base preparing for war in space
In a fake village in Buckinghamshire, several members of Space Command are huddled around a computer screen watching a foreign missile approach to a Ministry of Defence communications satellite. It is just an exercise, but it is a scenario that is increasingly worrying military chiefs, who fear space is now the most important theatre of war. Modern life is largely space-based, with satellites controlling everything from EasyJet flight plans to Amazon deliveries and army advances. Taking out satellites would cripple society. Russia took down the country's satellite communications just hours before it began the land invasion. China and Russia have also both tested anti-satellite missiles, while Moscow is allegedly developing a programme to arm some of its satellites with nuclear warheads, meaning it could destroy enemy networks while in orbit. In recognition of this new orbital battlefield, Space Command was established at RAF High Wycombe in 2021, to 'protect and defend' UK interests in space, and is now home to the UK Space Operations Centre, which was officially opened by government ministers this week. The RAF base is the former headquarters of Bomber Command, a military unit responsible for strategic bombing during the Second World War. With its winding streets, faux church towers and manor house office blocks, was designed to look like a quintessential Home Counties village, should the Luftwaffe be passing over. The Bomber Command logo 'Strike Hard, Strike Sure' has been replaced with Space Command's 'Ad Stellas Usque' – Latin for 'up to the stars'. Where Bomber Harris's team had its eyes fixed firmly on the ground, Space Command's gaze is now turned skywards. Maria Eagle, minister for defence procurement, who helped open the operations centre this week, said: 'From a national security point of view, space is a contested and congested and competitive domain, and we need to make sure, as our adversaries advance their capabilities, that we're able to deal with what that throws up.' She added: 'It's an extension of the more earthbound worries that we've got. The usual kind of things that you worry about on Earth, it's just extended upwards, because that's now a domain that is as important as land, sea or air to the potential of war-fighting or defending national security. 'The National Space Operations Centre does vital work in monitoring and protecting our interests. It's a recognition of the fact that our adversaries are active there, and we need to know what's going on.' Although the United States performed the first anti-satellite tests in 1959, space warfare has largely been consigned to Hollywood and science fiction until recently. Fears began to ramp up in January 2007, when China shot down one of its own ageing weather satellites with a ballistic missile creating a cloud of space junk, which is still causing problems. In November 2021, Russia conducted its own direct-ascent anti-satellite test, destroying the Soviet intelligence satellite Kosmos-1408, and generating a debris field that forced astronauts on the International Space Station to take shelter. However it is not just anti-satellite missiles that are causing concern. According to the latest Space Threat Assessment, from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, nations are developing evermore elaborate space weapons. These weapons include electro-magnetic pulses, microwaves and lasers to fry electronics, dazzlers to blind optical sensors, and grapplers to latch on to satellites and pull them out of orbit. China, Russia, Iran and North Korea all have the capability of jamming and hijacking satellite signals and launching cyber attacks. A 10-second delay in Google Chrome loading may seem like a domestic internet glitch, but bad actors could also be behind it, Space Command has warned. 'Counter-space arsenal' Space Command is particularly worried about China, which in the past year has launched increasingly advanced and highly-manoeuvrable satellites for purposes that remain unclear. CSIS believes Beijing may be creating a ' formidable on-orbit counter-space arsenal ' and that manoeuvrability testing is allowing Chinese operators to develop 'tactics and procedures that can be used for space war-fighting'. US Space force commanders have also warned that Chinese satellites have been spotted 'dogfighting' in space, moving within less than a mile of each other. 'China continues to develop and field a broad set of counter-space capabilities,' a member of Space Command told The Telegraph. 'It's certainly one of the more capable adversaries. Space is no longer a sanctuary, it's a space of contest. It's the modern battlefield.' Russia's Luch satellites have also been spotted stalking European communications and broadcast satellites, moving close to their orbits for reasons not fully understood. Space Command fears they are probing the systems to find out how best to disrupt signals. Although Russia continues to deny it is developing an orbital nuclear anti-satellite weapon – which would breach the 1967 Outer Space Treaty – US intelligence suggests otherwise. Chris Bryant, minister of state for data protection and telecoms, said: 'There's a lot of stuff up there now … and the risks from deliberate bad actors, in particular from Russia and China, and the havoc that could be created either deliberately or accidentally, is quite significant. 'So we need to monitor as closely as we possibly can, 24/7, everything that is going on up there so that we can avert accidental damage, and we can also potentially deter other more deliberate, harmful activity.' Space Command currently employs more than 600 staff, roughly 70 per cent of whom are from the Royal Air Force with the remaining 30 per cent from the Army and Navy, plus a handful of civilians. Not only is it monitoring the sky for threats from foreign powers but it is also keeping an eye out for falling space debris, asteroids, and coronal mass ejections from the Sun which could wipe out power grids and satellites. When a threat is spotted, the team can contact satellite providers to warn them to reposition their spacecraft, or advise them to power down until a powerful jet of plasma has passed through. It also informs the government and the security services on the orbital movements of foreign powers. Space Command also launched its first military satellite last year, named Tyche, which can capture daytime images and videos of the Earth's surface for surveillance, intelligence gathering and military operations. It is part of the Government's £968 million Istari programme which will see more satellites launched by 2031 to create a surveillance constellation. Mr Bryant added: 'Lots of people think 'space' and joke about Star Trek and the final frontier, but actually the truth is you couldn't spend a single day of your life these days in the UK without some kind of engagement with space. 'The havoc that could be created, which might be military havoc, or it might be entirely civil havoc, could be very significant.'
