“Mind-boggling” is the word Space Force Gen. Chance Saltzman used to describe China’s explosive advances in space as he warned the U.S. is on a path to losing its dominance in orbit.
Testifying before the bipartisan U.S.-China Commission on Thursday, Saltzman said China is “heavily investing” in both ground-based and space-based weapons designed to disable enemy satellites, including kinetic strikes, radio-frequency jamming and directed energy weapons.
The U.S., meanwhile, is “resource limited” and still weighing “which ones we could get the most utility out of,” he said.
The general’s testimony came as Congress weighs how to counter growing Chinese aggression in space and whether the Space Force has the tools to keep pace. China increased its military spending by 7% this year, stockpiling anti-satellite missiles and claiming to possess directed energy weapons that use concentrated energy beams to jam satellite signals.
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There’s also a risk if China were to destroy a satellite in orbit, an action that could trigger a global catastrophe, Saltzman warned, pointing to lingering debris from Russia’s 2021 anti-satellite missile test and China’s 2007 test, which continue to threaten spacecraft safety.
China’s space-based targeting capabilities have “grown most impressively” in recent years, Saltzman said, with hundreds of satellites now dedicated to tracking U.S. assets in orbit. That expansion has given the Space Force a “new mission set”: to deny China the ability to surveil American satellites in real time.
Yet Saltzman warned the U.S. is falling behind. The Space Force budget has shrunk in absolute terms, even as space becomes an increasingly contested military domain. Lawmakers, he said, still operate with an “out of sight, out of mind” mindset.
“It’s just still a low priority in terms of the policy regime,” Saltzman said. “The modern battlefield has to account for the space domain. If we can’t continue to protect our use of the domain – and we can’t deny an adversary – that’s going to be tied to the military objectives in any of the other domains.
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“I believe we have more missions unfunded than funded,” Saltzman said, adding that Space Force still lacks the size and capabilities needed to carry out its expanding responsibilities.
The U.S., for example, does not have an operational quantum satellite, but China does. Quantum satellites can enable ultra-secure communications and advanced navigational technologies.
China’s investment in space-based tech for long-range precision strikes and reusable launch vehicles “represent an inflection point in space access that may result in China overtaking U.S. leadership,” Saltzman said.
Just weeks ago, Space Force Vice Chief of Operations Gen. Michael Guetlein revealed that China has been practicing satellite “dogfighting,” a sign of its growing ability to conduct complex operations in orbit.
Space Force has observed “five different objects in space maneuvering in and out and around each other in synchronicity and in control,” he said.
“That’s what we call dogfighting in space,” Guetlein said. “They are practicing tactics, techniques and procedures to conduct on-orbit operations from one satellite to another.”
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