Bill Gertz
China’s plans for space warfare include the use of cyberattacks and electronic jamming to disrupt and disable U.S. satellite systems, while the Chinese military in the future will have small robot satellites for grabbing or crushing U.S. military space sensors, according to a report by a senior U.S. intelligence official.
China’s three types of anti-satellite missiles capable of blasting satellites at all orbits are under the control of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Military Commission headed by President Xi Jinping and represent a deterrent force, according to Kristin Burke, deputy national intelligence officer for space at the National Intelligence Council, a senior analysis unit.
Ms. Burke disclosed new details of Chinese space warfare capabilities in a Dec. 11 report, identifying the People’s Liberation Army units in charge of space cyber warfare, electronic jamming and directed energy attacks on satellites. The report also revealed the locations of PLA bases and units armed with road-mobile anti-satellite missiles.
The unclassified report is based on PLA military and technical writings. It was written to assist U.S. military planners in targeting Chinese space warfare assets and in war games to better prepare for a possible future conflict with Beijing. The 79-page report, “PLA Counterspace Command and Control,” was published by the Air Force’s China Aerospace Studies Institute.
Mr. Xi declared in a 2012 speech to PLA missile forces that the military must “step up the construction of ground-based anti-satellite operational forces and ensure the on-schedule formation of combat capability.”
China’s most lethal strategic space weapons are three types of satellite-killing missiles identified in the report as the DN-1, DN-2, and DN-3 missiles, one of which is currently deployed on a road-mobile launcher. The missiles can reach all three orbit levels, low, medium and geosynchronous orbits.
Geosynchronous orbit is about 22,300 miles above Earth, where many intelligence and global navigation satellites are located. An attack on a satellite in that orbit could create a damaging debris field that could hit the more than 6,000 satellites, both military and civilian, orbiting at that level.
Preparing for years
The PLA has been training for anti-satellite missile attacks since 2018, and the report included a photograph of an anti-satellite missile training exercise in western China. The report said the decision to launch a space attack against satellites during conflict would be made at the CMC’s new joint operations command center.
However, the PLA appears to have shifted its plans for anti-satellite attacks after the 2007 test of a missile that destroyed a weather satellite and created tens of thousands of pieces of space debris in the process. The PLA conducted a second ASAT test in July 2014, but it did not produce debris.
Currently, China plans to use its ASAT missiles to deter attacks on its own satellites, the report said. Such deterrent exercises would likely be carried out by PLA air force or rocket force units with help from the Strategic Support Force space systems department, the report said.
“While [direct ascent] ASAT missiles potentially could be deployed from many more places than expected, the PLA’s primary intention for the missiles is to be a credible deterrent, and only the CMC would cautiously approve their use,” the report said.
The report said, “in order for an adversary to view the weapon as a real threat, the mobile ASAT missiles and their support equipment need to be dispersed across China in secret locations, available for PLA targeting of adversary military satellites.”
Additionally, China may be using its ASAT missiles disguised as anti-ballistic missile interceptors to confuse adversaries, the report said.
The PLA’s use of jamming gear to disrupt satellite communications from space to the ground is relatively advanced and can be carried out by theater commands during wartime. PLA forces also have low-powered, directed energy weapons to disrupt satellites and offensive cyberattacks, as well as malware weapons for use locally, the report said.
PLA military writings reveal plans for jamming foreign military GPS signals and also to confuse — “spoof” — satellites with false location data. Ground signals sent to satellites also can be jammed and one 2022 PLA document revealed the capability to jam satellite navigation signals sent to guided missiles.
“In a PRC regional battle, satellite uplink and downlink jamming are both expected,” the report said.
Offensive operations
For offensive cyberattacks against space assets, the report identifies more than five separate PLA units involved in cyber warfare against satellites.
Plans call for covertly planting computer malware in enemy space information systems through remote entry. The weapons include “computer viruses, logic bombs, and chip weapons to implement network attacks,” the report said.
China showed its ability to penetrate adversary systems in the early 2000s when Chinese hackers infiltrated systems of NASA’s Kennedy Space Flight Center space shuttle vehicle assembly building. The penetration provided the PLA with insights on complex launch preparations.
The PLA, in May 2022, moved a car-based, commercially available navigation signal jammer within 32 feet of a launch pad at the Jiuquan space center, a jammer that “could have disrupted navigation systems and caused a rocket to deviate from its trajectory,” the report said.
Chinese-directed energy systems that can interfere with satellites are deployed at several locations in China. The weapons can be used for “reversible satellite dazzling and space services jamming,” the report said.
The PLA also has high-powered microwave weapons and electromagnetic pulse weapons, but it is not clear whether the arms can be used against satellites, the report said.
One PLA study stated that Chinese military units are working on using directed energy space weapons. The PLA central command practiced “interfering with early warning satellites like the U.S. [Space-Based Infrared System] in geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO) to slow the satellite’s information acquisition time,” the report said.
The report said China’s systems currently for maneuvering satellites with grappling arms are large and thus would be difficult to deploy in a time of conflict.
“The miniaturization of such systems … is the likely technology path which would be a hard-to-track co-orbital counterspace threat,” the report said.
Chinese state media has noted that the world’s military powers, including China, are building “several space-based combat platforms which can capture and dismantle spacecraft with … robotic arms.” In June 2021, a PLA engineer disclosed that the Chinese military has “developed an experimental counterspace satellite with a robotic arm,” one that can alter orbit and detect satellites.
The report said PLA maneuvering satellites have conducted “uncoordinated engagements with U.S. satellites” orbiting in space, an indication of increasing capabilities for grappling operations in wartime.
China’s space warfare capabilities also include plans for space-based electronic jamming satellites, the report said.
“Within the last ten years, the PLA has probably launched an experimental communications jamming satellite in geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO) to practice space-based reversible satellite communications jamming,” the report said.
Dispersed control
The report concludes that command and control of space warfare forces will be spread out among several different PLA components, including the Strategic Support Force, rocket force and air force, and that any action involving strategic impacts will be controlled by the ruling party’s Central Military Commission.
Ms. Burke did not respond to an email request for comment on the report.
Retired Navy Vice Admiral Brian Brown, stated in a report in the journal Naval Institute Proceedings that using space to obtain an information advantage in future conflict is a key aspect of joint military operations.
Adm. Brown, a former deputy commander of the Strategic Command’s Joint Functional Component Command for Space, said China is organized to counter U.S. space-based technology through a set of distributed capabilities.
“China’s use of space at a regional level to gain battlespace awareness, disrupt U.S. [command and control], and target U.S. forces is rapidly improving—as is its ability to disrupt and degrade space operations through terrestrial and space-based means,” he stated.
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