A Long March-4B launch vehicle carrying Gaofen-11 04, an Earth observation satellite, blasts off from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in northern China’s Shanxi Province on December 27, 2022.
Wang Xiaohu | Xinhua News Agency | Getty Images
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I think one of my roles as a reporter is, “I read this so you don’t have to,” and this case involves the Pentagon’s annual report to Congress on China’s military and security developments. At a full 212 pages, the document presents the latest in-depth, albeit unclassified, view of China’s military ambitions.
A quick CTRL+F search turns up 105 references to “satellite” – suffice it to say that space is an important part of China’s defense strategy. In other words:
“The PRC’s goal is to become a wide-ranging, fully capable space power. Its fast-growing space program – second only to the United States in the number of operational satellites – is a source of national pride and part of Xi’s ‘Chinese Dream’ to create a powerful and prosperous China.”
The Pentagon emphasized that the space capabilities of China’s military, or PLA, continue to “maturate rapidly” thanks to “significant economic and political resources to grow all aspects of its space program.”
China’s PLA has a “Strategic Support Force” or SSF, under whose command is the “Space Systems Division” or SSD, which directs its military space operations. The country has five launch sites and last year carried out more than 60 successful launches – triple the rate from five years ago, but still short of the 78 the US has launched in 2022.
In addition, China’s 2022 launches put more than 180 satellites into orbit – five times more than it deployed five years ago. It also operates ground stations in Namibia, Pakistan, Argentina and Kenya, plus a “handful” of support ships to track satellite and missile launches.
China operates a fleet of more than 290 intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) satellites as of March 2022. The Pentagon emphasized that most of these Chinese satellites can “support the surveillance, tracking, and targeting of U.S. and allied forces around the world, particularly in Indo-Pacific Region.”
As for communications satellites, China has over 60 in orbit, both for military and civilian use, and “has advanced communications satellites capable of transmitting large amounts of data.”
Like the US GPS system of 31 operational satellites, the Chinese completed their BeiDou constellation with 49 operational Position, Navigation and Time (PNT) satellites. Similar to the huge economic benefits created by the US system, China predicts that “BeiDou products and services will be worth $156 billion by 2025,” which the country plans to export “to more than 100 million users in 120 countries.”
And lest we forget, China has an operational anti-satellite (ASAT) missile system to target and destroy satellites in low Earth orbit. The Pentagon believes the country “probably intends to pursue additional ASAT weapons capable of destroying satellites up to geosynchronous Earth orbit.”
Finally, China’s broader space capabilities are in the same league as those of NASA and US industry: the country has an independent, operational manned space station and has successfully sent robotic landers and rovers to the surfaces of the Moon and Mars. It also launched “multiple satellites” to experiment with in-orbit servicing, including a satellite launched with a robotic arm “that could be used in a future anti-satellite countermeasures system.”
For what it’s worth, there is some dialogue between US and Chinese officials on the civilian side of things: Office of Space Commerce chief Richard DalBello recently met with his “Chinese counterparts” at the Baku Astronautical Congress.
None of this is new, nor should it come as a surprise, but it is a key reminder of America’s biggest space rival. China is not challenging the US in one particular area of space technology – it is competing with our capabilities in every area and in every way.
