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China is stepping up its bid to replace the US as a major space power.
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It’s moving “at breathtaking speed,” according to the US Space Force commander.
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China could use its control over space to target US satellites.
After meeting with Japanese and South Korean officials in Tokyo on Friday, U.S. Space Force commander Gen. Stephen Whiting warned of a growing threat.
China, he said, is “moving in space at breathtaking speed” and is developing a range of weapons that threaten America’s supremacy in space, Stars and Stripes reported.
“They also use space to make their land forces – their army, their navy, their marine corps, their air force – more precise, more lethal and more far-reaching,” he added.
It is one of a series of warnings from top US military officials in recent months about the growing space threat posed by China.
There is a very real risk, they say, that the US could soon lose its status as the world’s dominant space power.
“We are at a pivotal moment in history,” Troy Meink, deputy director of the National Reconnaissance Office, which builds and operates the U.S. fleet of spy satellites, said at a recent event in Colorado, as quoted by Space.com.
“For the first time in decades, America’s leadership in space and space technology is being tested,” Meink added. “Our competitors are actively looking for ways to threaten our capabilities, and we see this every day.”
They echo comments by Gen. Chance Saltzman, chief of space operations at the United States Space Force, who warned last year against taking U.S. space supremacy for granted.
“I worry about a much more subtle form of complacency. A form that comes from the comfort of continuity, the comfort of our expertise, the comfort of our successes. What we have done and how we have done it has worked and worked. Well, yes, but I’m afraid we think it will work well forever,” he said.
Space travel today is “much more contentious and U.S. access to space capabilities is not a given,” Saltzman said.
US satellites under threat
In recent years, China has developed an advanced military program in space, where the US was the dominant force for decades.
Space is where military analysts believe the first shots could be fired in a war between superpowers.
China has created technology capable of targeting US satellites, better monitoring the Earth and developing coordination between land, sea, air and space operations.
At a congressional hearing in February, Whiting said China is also developing a “hysonic hover vehicle” and other weapons that can evade air defense systems and satellite warnings.
Dominic Chiu, an analyst at the Eurasia Group, told Business Insider that space warfare plans were at the heart of China’s recent military reorganization.
“China’s leadership believes that elements such as space and cyber will play a greater role, and that making them operationally more efficient is crucial for readiness and success,” he said.
The plans place China’s aerospace units directly under the control of Central Command and reflect the U.S. creation of a Space Force under former President Donald Trump in 2018, Chiu said.
One of the main fronts in the rivalry is the race to the moon, and US officials warn that China, under the guise of scientific research, could be planning to take control of parts of the moon’s surface as part of its plans for military dominance. .
With the Artemis mission, the US plans to send astronauts to the moon for the first time in 50 years. But China has its own moon landing program, and U.S. lawmakers warned at a congressional hearing in January that delays in NASA’s plans to get astronauts to the moon’s surface by 2022 mean China could get there first.
“The country that lands first will have the ability to set a precedent for whether future lunar activities are conducted with openness and transparency or in a more limited manner,” said House Science Chairman Rep. Frank Lucas. Space and Technology Committee.
Brig. Gen. Anthony Mastalir, commander of U.S. Space Forces Indo-Pacific, told a conference in March that China could be planning to use its presence on the moon as part of secret plans to target U.S. satellites.
“As in other areas, the US is the incumbent power, and China is trying to catch it and, if possible, overtake it, using its race to the moon to increase funding,” Graeme Thompson, an analyst at the Eurasia Group, to BI. .
The US and allies monitor deep space for threats
The US and its allies are responding to the threat by developing plans to monitor areas of space that China is trying to dominate for potential threats.
In December, the AUKUS alliance, made up of the US, Australia and Britain, said it would develop radars to monitor threats in “deep space”, some 35,000 kilometers from Earth.
“Both the US and China view space along with cyberspace as new and interconnected military domains, and both are part of US, UK and Australian cooperation under the AUKUS agreement,” Thompson said.
According to reports, the Pentagon is intensifying its effort to develop technology capable of countering China’s plans to disable US satellites.
Tory Bruno, CEO of United Launch Alliance, told NBC News that engineers are developing maneuverable satellites that can get away from Chinese satellites equipped with robotic arms to deorbit them.
The stakes in the race for space dominance couldn’t be higher, experts say. Whoever wins will not only control the moon, but will likely be the top power on Earth. And complacency could quickly cause America to lose its lead, critics say.
“The truth is that whoever controls the space domain will dominate the future global economy,” analyst Arthur Herman wrote for the conservative-leaning Hudson Institute in February.
“If America was the preeminent space power, from Presidents John F. Kennedy to Ronald Reagan, we have let our lead slip away as China and Russia strive to displace us all.”
Read the original article on Business Insider