Although not verified through other sources, the Hong Kong Sing Tao Daily newspaper quoted unnamed Chinese resources in reporting that China is developing a space-based anti-satellite system. According to the report, the concept is to deploy very small "parasitic" satellites called nano-satellites that would attach themselves to satellites and re-main inactive during normal times. Upon activation, these parasitic satellites would destroy the satellite or disrupt its operations. ( More ... )

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Thompson, David J. China in Space: Civillian and Military Developments. Maxwell AFB, AL: USAF Air University, August 2001. [ 4 quotes ] [ page 24 ]

 

China is suspected of developing ground-based laser weapons and electronic pulse weapons that could blind or destroy satellites. A weapon does not need to destroy a satellite to render it useless, just damage the susceptible optical sensors. The closer Sino-Russian relationship also is contributing to China's advancement, as Russia turns the former Soviet Union's tremendous Cold War research and development budgets and technological advancements into economic gains. ( More ... )

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Thompson, David J. China in Space: Civillian and Military Developments. Maxwell AFB, AL: USAF Air University, August 2001. [ 4 quotes ] [ page 12 ]

 

Only the PRC seems to have the requisite quantity and quality of launch and nuclear resources to produce an ASAT weapon in the near future. The Chinese have developed a series of space launch vehicles, have orbited space vehicles, and have tracked and controlled them. Additionally, their existing space program has become a valuable asset that they need to protect or, in some cases, use to deny space superiority to others. ( More ... )

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Chun, Clayton K. S. Shooting Down a Star: Program 437, the U.S. Nuclear ASAT System and Present Day Copycat Killers. Maxwell AFB, AL: USAF Air University, April 2000. [ 11 quotes ] [ page 67 ]

 

Technology accessible to China today enables attack by ground-segment interdiction, computer network disruption, communications jamming, laser blinding, direct ascent ASAT interceptors, space mines, debris rings, and high-altitude nuclear bursts. Interdicting ground stations may be the easiest way to disable space systems. Due to their concentration within US and Allied borders, such attacks would likely be highly escalatory. Computer network attack, communication jamming, and laser blinding have the advantage of being bloodless and potentially deniable, but can be susceptible to countermeasures. Options such as ground-launched missiles, co-orbital mines, fragmentation rings, and high-altitude nuclear bursts (supercharging the Earth's Van Allen radiation belts) offer the advantage of a hard-kill, but are non-discriminatory. China's satellites, as well as those belonging to third parties, would likely be damaged or destroyed by residual debris and radiation. While the above-listed methods provide China a number of technologically-available near-term options, further advances may give them the additional benefits of increased range and precision. ( More ... )

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France, Martin E.B. and Richard J. Adams. "The Chinese Threat to US Superiority." High Frontier Journal. Vol. 1, No. 3 (Winter 2005): 17-22. [ 12 quotes ] [ page 19 ]

 

Building on a solid base of design, manufacture, integration, test, launch, and TT&C capabilities, China is developing a range of technologies tailored for space control applications. Official sources (e.g., AMS, COSTIND, and the China Aerospace Corporation (CASC)) reflect both an increased interest in counterspace capabilities and the existence of actual ongoing programs. Systems under study and/or development include space-based 'killer' satellites, kinetic-kill vehicles, ground-based lasers, and electronic jammers. Numerous CASC articles describe detailed on-going research on terminal phase tracking and target discrimination using advanced methods such as ultra-wideband radar, thermal imaging, and sensor fusion. Two areas of particular relevance to China's future counterspace capability are directed energy weapons and agile microsats. These sophisticated approaches augment a growing list of ASAT options already available to China. ( More ... )

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France, Martin E.B. and Richard J. Adams. "The Chinese Threat to US Superiority." High Frontier Journal. Vol. 1, No. 3 (Winter 2005): 17-22. [ 12 quotes ] [ page 19 ]

 

China's burgeoning microsatellite program enhances its ability to attack American spaceborne assets. Beijing could discretely launch such small, lightweight and difficult to detect satellites as secondary payloads on otherwise overt missions. When desired, the hitchhiker could then maneuver into position for attack. With the help of Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd, (the leading microsat development company in Europe, if not the world) China is making tremendous strides in microsat design, fabrication, and operations. ( More ... )

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France, Martin E.B. and Richard J. Adams. "The Chinese Threat to US Superiority." High Frontier Journal. Vol. 1, No. 3 (Winter 2005): 17-22. [ 12 quotes ] [ page 20 ]

 

It is highly likely China is developing ground-based directed energy weapons with the capability to temporarily disable, damage, or even destroy a satellite. With roughly 300 organizations, 3,000 engineers, and 10,000 total personnel participating in laser-related efforts, Beijing's aggressive pursuit of advanced directed energy technology has given its program world-class status. As early as 1994, the Chinese successfully tested a free electron laser with a 140 megawatt output. They have since pursued miniaturization of laser systems, perhaps to enable a mobile system. According to other reports, China is seeking to build an ASAT system using a high-energy deuterium fluoride laser, mimicking the US Mid-Infrared Advanced Chemical Laser (MIRACL) design. ( More ... )

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France, Martin E.B. and Richard J. Adams. "The Chinese Threat to US Superiority." High Frontier Journal. Vol. 1, No. 3 (Winter 2005): 17-22. [ 12 quotes ] [ page 20 ]

 

Secondarily, there are also active defense measures, which entail actions of avoidance such as orbital maneuvering; or countermeasures such as anti-interference and anti-jamming techniques. At the extreme would be the use of micro-satellites to actively ‘guard’ other satellites and act as decoys, or even counter-attack. While these remain defensive measures, they take on a quality of dissuasion and even deterrence. Greater situational awareness through enhanced monitoring and surveillance in space is also crucial to this idea of defense in space. One of the driving forces behind China’s efforts to research space debris identification and tracking is to also improve China’s ability to monitor military assets.68 The ability to identify and discriminate objects in space is crucial to evaluating threats from non-threats in space. ( More ... )

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Hagt, Eric. "Mutually Assured Vulnerabilities." China Security. Vol. 1, No. 2 (2006): 84-106. [ 6 quotes ] [ page 93 ]

 

China, since joining the IADC in 1995, also maintains its own catalogue of space objects, using data from the SSN to perform avoidance maneuver calculations and debris modeling. Space surveillance is an area of growth for China, which announced new investments in optical telescopes for debris monitoring in 2003. Prior to the launch of the Shenzou V in 2003, it was revealed that the spacecraft had a debris 'alarm system' warning of potential collisions. In 2005, the Chinese Academy of Sciences established a Space Object and Debris Monitoring and Research Center at Purple Mountain Observatory that employs researchers to develop a debris warning system for China’s space assets. In support of its growing space program, China has established a tracking, telemetry and control (TT&C) system consisting of six ground stations in China and two on foreign soil, in Namibia and Pakistan, as well as a fleet of four Yuan Wang satellite tracking ships. These assets provide the foundation for space surveillance but have limited capacity to track uncooperative space objects.

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Collard-Wexler, Simon, Thomas Graham et al. Space Security 2006. Waterloo, Ontario: Space Security Index, July 2006. [ 26 quotes ] [ page 35 ]

 

As first reported in Aviation Week and Space Technology, and confirmed a few hours later by National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe, U.S. intelligence agencies believe that China launched a medium-range military missile from its Xichang spaceport and guided it into a high-speed, head-on collision with a weather satellite called Fengyun-1C. For the first known time in history, a missile launched from the ground destroyed an orbiting satellite. The event is supposed to have occurred about 5:30 p.m. ET on Jan. 11, or 6:30 a.m. Beijing time Jan. 12. Previous anti-satellite weapons tests, conducted during the Cold War, involved either co-orbiting killer satellites (the Soviet approach) or an air-launched anti-satellite missile (the U.S. approach, also considered by the Soviets but never attempted). Some tests involved shooting ground-based anti-missile missiles toward satellites, but those missiles never hit their mark. And a NASA flub of a robot rendezvous in 2004 resulted in the active satellite accidentally hitting — but not damaging — its target satellite.

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Oberg, James. "Analysis: Space war debate takes new turn." MSNBC News. January 18, 2007.

 

The direct-ascent ASAT appears to be part of a larger Chinese ASAT program that includes ground-based lasers and jamming of satellite signals. Chinese analysts, scientists, and strategists have written extensively about ASAT weapons and potential means of countering U.S. military uses of space. A recent Department of Defense report suggests that China appears to be developing a "ground-based laser designed to damage or blind imaging satellites." According to a news article, the Director of the National Reconnaissance Office confirmed that a Chinese laser illuminated a U.S. satellite. In addition, jamming could disrupt U.S. military communications and Global Positioning System (GPS) navigation and targeting signals. The exact performance characteristics of Chinese systems are unknown, but deployment of a range of ASAT capabilities could provide flexible options to temporarily or permanently deny U.S. space capabilities. The Chinese direct-ascent ASAT program appears to be in the research and development phase, and the intent or timing of operational deployment remains unknown.

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Lutes, Charles D. and Phillip C. Saunders. China's ASAT Test: Motivations and Implications. Washington, D.C.: Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, June 2007. [ 10 quotes ] [ page 1 ]

 

Space-object surveillance and identification systems. A detailed knowledge of the location, orbits, and missions of various U.S. space platforms is a precondition for successful counterspace operations. Chinese military planners, accordingly, have emphasized the need for a comprehensive catalog of all relevant space objects. Although these efforts have quite some ways to go, they have been aided by the vast amount of open information on U.S. space systems available through astronomy societies, international organizations, and universities— in addition to covert intelligencegathering mechanisms. China therefore continues to invest in everything from specialized optical telescopes and theodolites to lasertracking devices and large phased-array radar installations to detect and track orbital bodies passing over its mainland.

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Tellis, Ashley J. Punching the U.S. Military's "Soft Ribs": China's Anti-Satellite Weapon Test in Strategic Perspective. Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, June 2007. [ 15 quotes ] [ page 4 ]

 

Direct-attack weapons. Although the January 11 test should lay to rest any doubts about the seriousness of China’s ASAT program, such weapons represent only one facet of its current counterspace effort. Direct-ascent weapons are particularly effective against satellites flying in low Earth orbits, where most of America’s remote-sensing, meteorological, and imaging (electro-optical, infrared, and radar) intelligence satellites, and their associated relays, currently operate. They can also threaten spacecraft in medium and geosynchronous orbits, however, provided the attacker has a sufficiently powerful booster. This is where U.S. navigation and guidance satellites, military communications platforms, and early-warning and nuclear-detonation-detection systems now operate. There are several Chinese space launch vehicles and ballistic missiles like the DF-31 that could easily carry an ASAT payload to geosynchronous orbit, and it is not unreasonable to expect such dedicated systems in the future. One reputed analyst, Geoffrey Forden at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has already concluded that the payload used to intercept the weather satellite “could be used to destroy geostationary satellites in a direct ascent mode.”

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Tellis, Ashley J. Punching the U.S. Military's "Soft Ribs": China's Anti-Satellite Weapon Test in Strategic Perspective. Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, June 2007. [ 15 quotes ] [ page 4 ]

 

Directed-energy weapons. As part of the effort to develop “new concept weapons,” China has devoted substantial resources to directedenergy systems, particularly ground-based high- and low-power lasers, for counterspace purposes. Other technologies being discussed in China include high-power microwave weapons, electromagnetic railguns, and particle beam systems. Lasers are particularly attractive counterspace weapons because they permit an attacker to cause varying levels of satellite damage depending on necessity. A low-power laser, for example, could be used to temporarily blind an electro-optical intelligence collector by oversaturating its receptors. A high-power laser could be used to actually inflict structural damage on a spacecraft. Satellites in any orbit can be attacked by groundbased lasers; assuming that beam quality, jitter and control, and propagation problems have been satisfactorily resolved, the vulnerability of high-altitude satellites would depend mainly on the power output of the laser. China is already known to have lased U.S. reconnaissance satellites, and its capability to inflict more consequential damage will only grow over the next decade.

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Tellis, Ashley J. Punching the U.S. Military's "Soft Ribs": China's Anti-Satellite Weapon Test in Strategic Perspective. Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, June 2007. [ 15 quotes ] [ page 4-5 ]

 

Electronic attack. Because all the counterspace technologies discussed so far currently work best against spacecraft in low earth orbits, Chinese military planners have concentrated on electronic attack to stymie those critical U.S. space assets located in medium, geosynchronous, and highly elliptical orbits. The most important of these are the military tactical communications platforms and the global positioning system constellation, which provides precision navigation and timing data to military users and permits the accurate targeting of various weapon systems. Because of the greater distances of such orbits from Earth, Chinese tacticians have focused on electronic rather than physical means of attack. Where tactical communications and navigation and positioning systems are concerned -- both of which dominate the UHF band, providing the backbone for military operations -- Beijing has focused on sophisticated jamming technologies that would permit it to enforce information blackouts at critical moments in a war. Success here would compel the U.S. military to rely even more than usual on commercial services, which are disproportionately vulnerable. Electronic attack is a transitory, yet potent, form of "mission kill" that Chinese tacticians seem determined to exploit when "hard kill" in space appears beyond reach.

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Tellis, Ashley J. Punching the U.S. Military's "Soft Ribs": China's Anti-Satellite Weapon Test in Strategic Perspective. Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, June 2007. [ 15 quotes ] [ page 5 ]

 

In 2006 China reportedly used a ground-based laser to illuminate an American reconnaissance satellite flying over Chinese territory. The previously unreported incidents were acknowledged by the director of the National Reconnaissance Office, Donald Kerr, in October 2006. Details were not provided regarding the satellites involved or the number of incidents. It is difficult to verify from publicly available sources the nature of the laser beam (power level, continuous versus pulsed, etc.), the physical effects on the spacecraft, or the intent behind the illumination. Laser illumination at very low powers is used for satellite laser ranging as part of routine space surveillance. There is no international agreement prohibiting one state from using laser ranging on another state's satellites. The laser did appear to have an effect on the satellites and the incidents were detected after operators noticed occasional and sudden declines in satellite performance when passing over China. Gen. James Cartwright, Commander of US Strategic Command, denied that there is clear evidence of Chinese intentions to interfere with US space assets. Nonetheless, the ability to illuminate satellites in orbit with a laser beam demonstrates Chinese advances in laser, satellite tracking, and optics technology. High power lasers could conceivably blind the sensitive optics in imagery satellites, although a case could be made that the laser system is only intended to prevent Chinese ground assets from being imaged. No official Chinese statements have been released.

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Graham, Thomas and William Marshall. Space Security 2007. Waterlo, Ontario: Project Ploughshares, August 2007. [ 20 quotes ] [ page 134 ]