Far more rapidly and far more intensely than most believe, the planet’s economy and politics will be altered by space technology. We conclude our publishing of key portions of the National Space Intelligence and the National Air and Space Intelligence Center’s vital report on Competing in Space.
ELECTRONIC WARFARE
China likely is developing jammers to target a wide range of satellite communications supporting government and military operations. Chinese military exercises regularly incorporate jammers against satellite communications, spacebased radars, and satellite navigation systems, such as GPS.
Russia views electronic warfare as essential to gaining and maintaining information superiority and has fielded ground-based electronic attack systems to counter communications, radars, and GPS.
GROUND SITE ATTACKS
Potential adversaries can target space services with terrestrial weapons to include cyber, electronic warfare systems, or physical attacks that target supporting space-enabling ground infrastructure.
MULTI-DOMAIN WARFARE
Space technologies are critical enablers of modern warfare. Through satellites far above the traditional battlefield, space-enabled actors can collect, transmit, and relay data crucial for achieving military advantages and expanding multi-domain warfare over great distances. Satellites provide nations new means to target and deliver munitions, conduct information operations to influence civilians and service members, and control their military forces nearly anywhere in the world. The emergence of counterspace weapons has introduced methods to deny military and civilian use of space services. China and Russia view space capabilities as essential for winning future conflicts. In 2015, both countries began significant military reforms to modernize their use of space and counterspace assets. Today, China’s Strategic Support Force and Russia’s Space Forces are integrating space and counterspace capabilities into military operations and exercises, expanding personnel training and testing for space-enabled systems, and refining delivery of targeting data to precision weapon systems.
COUNTERSPACE WARFARE
Counterspace attacks against U.S. and allied satellites can have profound effects on global and national security that increase the risk of unintended escalation into military conflict. Attacks against space systems and services could result in major failures of critical, spaceenabled infrastructure, such as emergency services and power grids, and cripple a military’s ability to detect and defend against distant threats. Chinese military academic writings stress the necessity of “destroying, damaging, and interfering with the enemy’s reconnaissance…and communications satellites” to “blind and deafen the enemy.” In both September and October 2022, a Russian Foreign Ministry official at the United Nations stated “quasi-civilian” commercial satellites used for military purposes “may become a legitimate target for retaliation.”
ORBITAL BOMBARDMENT
Delivery of space-to-ground weapons, also called orbital bombardment, could prevent reliable missile warning and complicate defense engagements. In July 2021, China conducted the world’s first fractional orbital launch of a hypersonic glide vehicle, traveling the furthest distance (~40,000km) and flying the longest (100+ minutes) of any Chinese land attack weapon test to date.
RISKS IN THE SPACE ENVIRONMENT
Imagine if a fly colliding with your windshield could destroy your car. Space debris smaller than a fly can cause catastrophic damage to spacecraft. As launch activity, satellite breakups, and unsafe use of space continues, the risk of spacecraft colliding with debris will continue to grow. Global space monitoring networks are currently only capable of tracking debris larger than 10 cm, leaving the overwhelming majority of space objects untracked. As of December 2022, just 32,290 of an estimated 130 million objects in Earth’s orbit have been catalogued. In early 2021, International Space Station (ISS) operators discovered a sizable hole in the station’s robotic arm created by untracked debris, which highlights the danger these hidden objects can pose. Kinetic anti-satellite weapons have the potential to create substantial amounts of debris. China’s 2007 anti-satellite missile test created the largest single-collision debris field ever, with over 3,000 pieces of trackable debris. Multiple spacecraft, including the ISS, have maneuvered to avoid the debris. Russia’s 2021 anti-satellite missile test generated over 1,500 pieces of trackable orbital debris and potentially hundreds of thousands of smaller objects.
Planned mega-constellations of hundreds or thousands of satellites will complicate spacecraft tracking, signal interference mitigation, and collision avoidance. China’s planned Xingwang satellite internet constellation, just one of many prospective mega-constellations, could operate up to 28,000 satellites in low Earth orbit.
International norms have not kept pace with the dramatic evolution of space use over the past several decades. Despite the substantial increase in new space operators, technologies, and spacecraft, the international community has not achieved consensus on major norms, rules, or principles governing activities in space since the 1970s. China and Russia continue to endorse a draft treaty on weapons in space, though it fails to address a variety of anti-satellite weapons and lacks meaningful verification mechanisms.
Debris from space missions can threaten people and places on Earth. Launches over populated areas drop debris and toxic fuel on roads and people’s homes. Reentry of large, uncontrolled space objects into Earth’s atmosphere must be monitored to understand the risks to people worldwide.
Similar to adversarial electronic warfare operations, inadvertent signal interference from satellites or ground systems can degrade or deny satellite services. While the International Telecommunications Union regulates frequencies to avoid interference, conflicts between systems using the same frequencies can disrupt space services and require costly or complicated changes to satellite operations.
DEEP SPACE EXPLORATION
Spacefaring nations are once again taking significant steps beyond Earth’s immediate orbit. Deep space exploration promises substantial rewards: scientific breakthroughs for prestige and technological advancement; economic windfalls from resources on asteroids, the Moon, and other celestial bodies; and even potential strategic advantage in specialized orbits or high value locations. Organizations around the world have proposed over 50 deep space missions in the coming decades, with more than a dozen countries planning to visit the Moon, Lagrange points, other planets, and beyond. China and Russia both have multiple planned robotic missions to the Moon, including the jointly-developed International Lunar Research Station on the lunar surface in the 2030s. China’s plans also include its first crewed Moon mission in the 2030s and several robotic scientific missions to Mars, asteroids, and deep space. Russia’s plans include its own crewed Moon mission in the 2030s and robotic scientific missions to Venus, Mars, and deep space.
Moon
Between 2018 and May 2023, China, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, South Korea, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) launched lunar scientific missions; China landed its lunar far-side rover in 2019 and completed a separate sample return mission, Chang’e-5, in 2020. After returning the sample to Earth, Chang’e-5 transited to the L1 Sun-Earth Lagrange Point in 2021, and in early 2022, became the first spacecraft to enter a stable distant retrograde orbit around the Moon. In late 2023, India’s Chandrayaan-3 became the world’s first spacecraft to successfully land near the lunar south pole
Lagrange Points
Lagrange points, areas where gravity between two celestial bodies is balanced, allow spacecraft to expend considerably less fuel to remain in stable positions over long periods of time. These regions are uniquely valuable for long-term missions, such as surveillance, space environment monitoring, or data relay, in deep space. China operates its Queqiao relay satellite at the L2 Earth-Moon Lagrange point to communicate with the Yutu-2 lunar far-side rover and Russia operates the Spektr-RG deep space telescope at the L2 Sun-Earth Lagrange point.
Resource Exploitation
Countless celestial bodies beyond Earth have vast resources that could fundamentally change resource scarcity and humanity’s role in outer space. Helium-3 deposits on the Moon may offer a safe, non-radioactive source of nuclear energy in the future, and massive rare metal deposits on nearby asteroids could supply manufacturers in many industries here on Earth. Lunar and Martian soil can be processed into cement for permanent structures, like long-term human habitats, while water and oxygen in the soil can be used for life support and rocket fuel production.
Asteroids
In 2020, Japan successfully returned the second asteroid sample ever collected, following the 2010 return of its previous asteroid sample mission.
EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES AND MISSIONS
Researchers worldwide are developing novel technologies with the potential to dramatically improve and alter future space capabilities over the next twenty years. The convergence of technologies like artificial intelligence, 3D printing, and robotics will enhance and expand nations’ capabilities to perform a wide range of complex missions throughout space. Many of these technologies could have both peaceful and military applications.
Novel Propulsion
Innovative propulsion methods for launch vehicles and spacecraft, such as ecofriendly propellant, nuclear and electric propulsion, and solar sails are being designed and tested to minimize ecological damage on Earth, improve satellite performance, and enable new, long-duration missions
PRESERVING SPACE ACCESS
Our future will be defined by innovations in the space domain. We will increasingly value satellites and the services they provide to improve our local communities, grow our economies, advance scientific progress, and keep us safe. However, space developments will continue to introduce new challenges to global security and prosperity. The expanding utility of space systems has extended the boundaries of conflict and exacerbated the world’s vulnerability to dangers in the space environment. Actors seeking to challenge international order will have access to systems capable of devastating and lasting impacts on our progress on Earth and in space. As humanity expands its space presence, understanding the threats and risks of operating in space will be fundamental to preserving access and peaceful competition for generations to come.
Illustration: NASA