US intelligence warns of China’s growing ability to disrupt satellites in orbit

What happened

Beijing plans to deploy more anti-satellite missiles capable of destroying spacecraft in low, medium, and high orbits, the study indicates. China conducted a launch in 2013 that reached 30,000 kilometers high and suggested a potential capability against geosynchronous orbit satellites, although the DIA does not describe that capability as confirmed.

China has several ground stations carrying lasers intended to threaten opponent craft in space, capable of disrupting, degrading, or damaging satellites in low Earth orbit (the band of space closest to Earth, where most satellites fly). The use of kinetic, destructive missiles poses long-term risks to China’s own satellite systems and neutral ones unaffected by a conflict.

A test in 2007 by China destroying an old weather satellite created over 3,500 pieces of trackable debris, including over 2,400 pieces still in orbit, which will remain a collision hazard into the future. The DIA also questioned whether other Chinese spacecraft were really operating according to what Beijing publicly claimed.