U.S. racing to build space weapons to counter anti-satellite power of China and Russia

The U.S. Space Force is accelerating the deployment of counterspace weapons under a new Trump administration policy aimed at reasserting and ensuring American dominance over China and Russia in any potential orbital conflict.

The force currently is deploying three electronic satellite jammers and is racing to match the more advanced space forces of China and Russia that include an arsenal of anti-satellite weapons.

Space Force Gen. B. Chance Saltzman, chief of space operations, said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently set the goal for the U.S. military to dominate in space.

“And the Space Force was created to do just that,” Gen. Saltzman told The Washington Times. “The service has and will continue to invest in a full range of counterspace capabilities to deter conflict in space and to win decisively if called upon.

“Continuing to train and equip combat-credible guardians is essential to maintaining our warfighting readiness,” he said.

Mr. Hegseth said in a speech to workers at the space company Blue Origin last week that the $25 billion being spent on the new Golden Dome national missile and drone defense system would produce “cutting-age, space-based capabilities which we are going to need.”

Advanced satellite sensors capable of spotting and targeting enemy missiles launched from any location on the planet are under development, he said.

Those will be paired with space-based interceptors capable of neutralizing “any ballistic missiles, any hypersonic weapon, any drone long before it threatens our homeland,” Mr. Hegseth said.

“That is how we will establish total orbital supremacy,” he said.

Golden Dome systems are expected to support Space Force counterspace arms.

A Space Force spokeswoman declined to provide details on Gen. Saltzman’s plans for counterspace weapons, but at this point, the newest branch of the American military — the force was founded in 2019 under the first Trump administration — has only limited capabilities with counterspace systems. The force will be challenged to match enemy systems.

Precarious position

The current suite of U.S. space weapons includes the first deployed system, called the Counter Communications System, an electronic jammer operational since 2020 that can temporarily disrupt Chinese and Russian satellite communications.

Two new electronic jammers are being added. They include one called Meadowlands and another known as the Remote Modular Terminal.

The Space Force said the Meadowlands, produced by L3Harris Technologies Inc., is undergoing late-stage training and live-fire exercises. It is set for deployment this year.

The new system is a lighter and more compact variant of the CCS and is described as a tactical electronic warfare weapon.

The Remote Modular Terminal, made by Northstrat Inc. and CACI International Inc., is in a limited early-use phase — capable of being fired while undergoing testing.

The Space Force plans to buy 32 Meadowlands and 24 Remote Modular Terminal systems, according to Bloomberg News, which first reported the two new jammers.

Funding for counterspace weapons in the recently passed $890.6 billion authorization bill is relatively meager and does not appear to support a space dominance policy.

Procurement for counterspace weapons in the current fiscal year is $2 million, and the research, development, testing and evaluation budget for counterspace systems spending is $31.2 million, according to a funding chart in the defense authorization act.

Developing space weapons is a priority for the Pentagon because U.S. space systems, including high-altitude global positioning system satellites — used for GPS targeting and navigation in military operations, missile warning satellites and key imagery and communications systems — were not designed for conflict in space.

Space Force leaders recognize that the once nonthreatening space environment is now a warfighting domain for the U.S., China and Russia.

Most current satellites are vulnerable to enemy jamming, lasers, maneuvering killer robot satellites, anti-satellite missiles and cyberattacks.

Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier warned Congress in 2022 about U.S. satellite vulnerabilities.

“The loss of space-based communication and navigation services could have a devastating impact on warfighters during a conflict — that’s one of the most serious scenarios anticipated,” he said.

The U.S. intelligence community’s latest annual threat assessment declared that China poses the central space threat.

“China already has fielded ground-based counterspace capabilities, including [electronic warfare] systems, directed energy weapons and anti-satellite missiles intended to disrupt, damage, and destroy target satellites,” according to the latest assessment made public last year.

“China also has conducted orbital technology demonstrations, which, while not counterspace weapons tests, prove its ability to operate future space-based counterspace weapons.”

In November, the congressional U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission faulted the Space Force for not pursuing space weapons and outlined the danger of Chinese space weapons in its annual report. The report said China also seeks space superiority. The commission report said China’s military has deployed multiple space warfare systems capable of destroying and disrupting U.S. satellites. It said the Space Force was constrained in building space weapons in response.

The panel called for lifting long-standing policy constraints imposed under the Biden administration. That administration blocked all space arms over concerns about weaponizing space, despite growing evidence that China and Russia were moving ahead with the weapons.

“These constraints include limits on developing and using offensive counterspace capabilities like ASAT [anti-satellite] weapons, electronic jamming, and cyber operations as well as limited resources to update legacy systems or build new capabilities,” the report said.

By contrast, the commission warned that China’s military invested heavily in space weapons to destroy or disrupt satellites and “incapacitate” U.S. communications, intelligence, missile warnings and undermine the military’s ability to conduct joint operations and project power.

China’s space arms include three types of ground-based anti-satellite missiles, a fleet of robotic satellites that can capture and destroy satellites without creating debris, and electronic and directed-energy anti-satellite weapons.

The commission called for establishing “space superiority against China’s rapidly expanding space and counterspace capabilities,” a call apparently heeded by the administration.

“Beijing’s investment in counterspace systems — including direct-ascent anti-satellite weapons and co-orbital interference platforms — illustrates its strategy of blinding and disorienting U.S. forces in the opening phase of a conflict,” the commission report said.

Charles Galbreath, a retired Space Force colonel, said Mr. Hegseth’s comments on space power dominance are “probably some of the most aggressive language I’ve heard ever, openly, about conflict in the space domain.”

Mr. Galbreath, now with the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, said the Space Force is not where it needs to be and China, and to a lesser extent Russia, are ahead of the U.S. in anti-satellite, or ASAT, missiles and ground-based lasers.

On ground-based jammers, U.S. systems could be even with those of Beijing and Moscow, he said.

“But on-orbit capabilities that the Chinese have seem to be ahead of us from a counterspace perspective,” Mr. Galbreath said in an interview.

Current Space Force orbital warfare capability is limited to the Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program, or GSSAP, satellites that serve as a “neighborhood watch.” That program is not a counterspace weapons system, he said.

Mr. Galbreath said his view from more than two years ago — that it was “oxymoronic” to create a new military service without providing weapons needed for its mission — is still relevant.”

Details regarding current space weapons probably should remain hidden over concerns that revealing information could render counterspace weapons ineffective later, he said. But greater openness at some point will be needed for deterrence, however. “If our objective is to deter an adversary through an acknowledged military superiority on our part, we’ve got to be able to talk about some of that capability,” Mr. Galbreath said.

The Secure World Foundation, which produces an annual report on global counterspace weapons, argues that past U.S. weapons systems provide much greater space warfare power than the three jammers.

During the Cold War, the U.S. military developed multiple counterspace weapons. They ranged from nuclear-tipped missiles to a conventionally armed anti-satellite missile fired from an F-15, the foundation said in its most recent report.

The jet-launched ASM-135 ASAT missile was tested in 1995 but later abandoned under pressure from arms control advocates who opposed the system.

For U.S. on-orbit satellite capabilities, the U.S. has launched satellites that can maneuver with other orbiting satellites. In 2003, the Air Force launched a satellite called the XSS-10 together with a GPS satellite that conducted maneuvers near the upper stage of the launcher.

The Secure World report also said the X-37B robotic space plane could be used as a counterspace weapon and that China and Russia have called the secretive plane an orbital bomber or secret space weapons test platform.

Other systems that the report said could be U.S. counterspace systems are the GSSAP satellites, the three known jammers and past ground-based directed energy weapons such as lasers, particle beams and radio frequency beams that were tested in the past.

Victoria Samson, author of the latest report, said she does not think China and Russia are ahead of the U.S. in space arms.

“While the U.S. only has three official offensive counterspace capabilities fielded, it has successfully tested co-orbital and direct-ascent ASAT weapons, conducts sophisticated [rendezvous and proximity operations] at both low earth orbit and geosynchronous orbit to monitor and follow other countries’ satellites, possesses the most advanced [space situational awareness] capabilities in the world, and if we move ahead with Golden Dome, will have weaponized space with interceptors that could also serve as on-orbit ASATs,” Ms. Samson said in an email.

Russia’s biggest edge on the U.S. is likely its reported work on an orbital nuclear warhead that could be used to attack satellites, while China has made progress with the use of a satellite that can grab other satellites and move them into a graveyard orbit.

“The U.S. has not done either of those, although it has conducted satellite servicing,” she said.

The orbital playbook

Space Force plans for waging warfare in space are outlined in a March 2025 report called “United States Space Force Space Warfighting: A Framework for Planners.”

The report defined three main types of counterspace operations as control of space using both offensive and defensive action.

“Counterspace operations are conducted across the orbital, link and terrestrial segments of the space architecture,” the report said, creating effects aimed at “space superiority.”

The combat will include “orbital warfare” using fires, movement and maneuver to control space.

Also used will be electromagnetic warfare to defeat enemy space and counterspace threats.

Cyber warfare also will be a major part of space combat, using strikes and other actions to gain control of space.

Offensive space combat will include orbital strike operations, pursuit and escort of satellites, standoff attacks, interdicting space communications links and maneuvering killer satellites that can grab and crush enemy systems.

Orbital attacks will use “pursuit operations” with an attacking system maneuvering to an enemy spacecraft before firing weapons. Alternatively, the Space Force will use standoff operations — space-based or ground long-range missiles that attack without a nearby orbital rendezvous.

Space link interdiction will use electromagnetic or cybernetwork attacks.

Ground-based attacks will use missiles and other strikes against enemy spacecraft before or shortly after launch, as well as against other ground-based counterspace forces, launch infrastructure, command-and-control facilities, antennas, ground-based space awareness sensors, and mission networks.

“The goal of terrestrial strike operations is to constrain an enemy’s ability to access, control, or exploit space or counterspace capabilities,” the report said. “Terrestrial strike operations can be conducted by air-based fires, ground-based fires, maritime-based fires and space-based fires.”

Defensive actions also will seek to protect U.S. and allied space systems from attack, interference and other hazards. “Active space defense operations are conducted using a mix of weapon and sensor systems, supported by secure and highly responsive [command-and-control] systems, to find, fix, track, target and destroy or reduce the effectiveness of space threats,” the report said.

“Counterspace operations are essential to joint operations as achieving space superiority can provide a decisive advantage to those who secure it,” the report said.

The mission ahead

Gen. Saltzman said in a March speech that the Space Force employs more than 15,000 people and that its budget is 3.3% of the total Pentagon budget.

Counterspace systems were one of three priorities. The others are “space awareness,” or intelligence on what is happening in space and resilient satellite systems that can survive space conflict.

The four-star general outlined six categories of counterspace weapons — three in space and three on the ground. They will include jammers, directed energy and missiles. The Space Force also will play a major role in Golden Dome, he said.

Counterspace weapons fall into several general categories. They include kinetic kill missiles and reversible and nonreversible electronic and cyber hits. Hard kill systems use missiles or other projectiles to attack satellites.

China and Russia have tested and deployed several types of ground-based anti-satellite missiles capable of blasting satellites.

China’s 2007 anti-satellite missile test is perhaps the most notorious destructive practice shot. A missile knocked out a weather satellite and created thousands of pieces of high-speed orbiting debris that continue to threaten spacecraft.

That was followed in 2021 by a Russian ASAT missile test that struck a satellite, spreading more than 1,500 pieces of debris.

Co-orbital anti-satellite systems are another area of counterspace arms. They can include robot satellites disguised as repair satellites, equipped with mechanical arms that can grab and crush other satellites.

China has tested several types of these systems. The Shijian-21 satellite, launched in 2021, practiced grappling a BeiDou navigation satellite and moved it to a higher graveyard orbit in what U.S. officials said is a dual-use ASAT capability.

Russia’s co-orbital killer has been identified by U.S. intelligence as the Nivelir system that can deploy so-called nesting doll sub-satellites for inspection or kinetic kills. Moscow also is working on the Burevestnik missile, for low earth orbit and high geosynchronous orbit ASAT attacks.

Another Russian system is the Cosmos series of maneuvering satellites that have shadowed U.S. spy satellites in the past.

For electronic attacks, high-powered lasers and microwave weapons are being built, and some reports indicate electromagnetic pulse arms could be used to damage satellite electronics without causing debris.

Emil Michael, undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, stated in a X post that the Pentagon currently has directed energy weapons.

“Yes, the @DeptofWar  has directed energy weapons. Yes, we are scaling them,” he stated, using the administration’s name for the Pentagon.

The post included a graphic image of a ship-mounted directed-energy gun.

A report from the Hong Kong South China Morning Post earlier this month said Chinese researchers have developed a truck-mounted, high-powered microwave gun that can destroy low earth orbit satellite groups, such as those used by SpaceX’s Starlink system.

China’s communist authorities fear that Starlink, which provides space-based internet access, could be used to break through technical controls and sensors.

In ASAT cyberattacks, military hackers are preparing to use cyber means to intercept and corrupt data, and to seize control of space systems for malicious purposes.

All satellites rely on data links that, if left unprotected, could be hacked and used in disruptive attacks and, in some cases, the permanent loss of a satellite.

The congressional China commission report warned that the U.S. is in danger of losing its leadership role in space to China.

The contest with China is about who will control critical infrastructure and rulemaking mechanisms that will define the future of the space domain.

“China’s rapid expansion of space capabilities across the military, commercial, and civil/diplomatic realms — and intent to displace the United States as the world’s premier space power — should concern all Americans,” the report said.

“Winning this race is not only about securing dominance in orbit — it is about protecting critical infrastructure, maintaining operational resilience, safeguarding democratic values in space governance, and ensuring that U.S. standards guide the development of rules and norms in space. Otherwise, China will use space to advance its own strategic interests to the disadvantage of the United States.”

U.S. policymakers must take urgent action to ensure the United States wins the new space race and retains the strategic high ground that has long underpinned our military and economic leadership, the panel said.