As China Space Threat Grows, U.S. Space Force Budget Slows

A congressionally chartered commission that monitors U.S.-China economic and security affairs heard from the head of the U.S. Space Force and a panel of experts today that China is the major space competitor to the United States. Russia’s military space program remains formidable, but civil and commercial activities have withered. The United States continues to be the global leader across all space sectors, but keeping that edge will be a challenge without more resources and preventing the “hollowing out” of the nation’s scientific base because of the DOGE cutbacks.

Testifying to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, Gen. B. Chance Saltzman, Chief of Space Operations for the U.S. Space Force, stressed how the space domain has changed in recent years. Space assets no longer play just a supporting role in U.S. military operations, but are integral to them.

“I used to say that space was kind of the icing on the cake. It just made everything better. But now the analogy I use is we’re more like the eggs in the batter.  You cannot extract it out.” — Gen. Chance Saltzman

Space has become a contested, warfighting domain and China’s ambitions could prove destabilizing. China has expanded its counterspace capabilities beyond the missiles used in their 2007 and 2013 antisatellite (ASAT) tests to ground-based lasers that can damage satellite sensors and radio frequency jammers and they are working on more capable versions. They also are developing dual-use “inspection and repair” satellites that could serve as ASATs. China understands the importance of spacepower and in the past 10 years its on-orbit capability “has grown by approximately 620%.”

The Space Force is working to stay ahead, but Saltzman said the budget is insufficient. After growing from $15.4 billion in FY2021, the first full budget after the Space Force was separated from the Air Force, to $26.3 million in FY2023, the FY2024 request was $30 million, but Congress appropriated only $29 billion. The FY2025 request was $29.4 billion, but $28.7 billion was provided in the final FY2025 Continuing Resolution. By contrast, China’s military budget is growing.

We have made tremendous progress over the past five years, but the reality is that we still have a long way to go. Last year the PLA’s [People’s Liberation Army’s] budget increased by 7 percent ….

Meanwhile, in absolute terms, the Space Force is shrinking. Dollars appropriated are less each year since 2023. Especially with regard to our newest and most vital mission, space control, we lack the force structure we need to execute our missions in the manner of our choosing. — Gen. Chance Saltzman

During a later panel discussion, Victoria Samson, Chief Director of Space Security and Stability at the Secure World Foundation (SWF), agreed that China “appears to be highly motivated to develop counterspace capabilities to bolster its national security” and recently designated space as a military domain. Still, it’s not clear, she said, if China would use their counterspace systems offensively or views them as deterrents.

SWF publishes an annual Global Counterspace Capabilities report. The 2025 edition was released today.

Her main point, though, was the United States needs to maintain its technological edge and at the same time engage with China through multilateral fora like the United Nations as well as on a bilateral basis on issues like space safety and space situational awareness.

Samson worries that maintaining a technological edge is threatened by the “hollowing out” of the U.S. scientific base due to the Trump Administration’s DOGE cutbacks, however.  The United States poured money into research after the end of World War II to keep ahead of Cold War rivals, but today is doing the opposite.

As for bilateral discussions, she called the Wolf Amendment a “speed bump.”  A law in effect since 2011, it doesn’t entirely prohibit bilateral U.S.-China space activities, but requires NASA, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Space Council to get FBI clearance and congressional approval in advance. That creates a chilling effect not only on those agencies, but any others considering bilateral discussions, she said. Except for its military space program, Russia is “a failing space power,” making the U.S. and China the two “preeminent space powers,” but the Wolf Amendment is an obstacle to them coordinating on issues ranging from orbital debris to lunar surface operations.

Other witnesses — Brien Alkire from RAND, Blaine Curcio from Orbital Gateway Consulting, Dave Cavossa from the Commercial Space Federation, and Andrew Cox from Fourspoke LLC — painted a picture of China’s space program as expanding across all sectors, civil, commercial and military.

It’s become common to say the United States is in a Space Race with China like the one with the Soviet Union in the 1950s and 1960s, but Cavossa said this time is different. There’s not just a single destination like the Moon that determines who wins. We have to dominate in all space technologies, “launch, operations, infrastructure, remote sensing, satellite communications, in-space operations and mobility, and resource utilization to name a few.”

Cavossa offered nine recommendations on how the U.S. can stay ahead ranging from funding increases to regulatory reform to international leadership in discussions about norms in space. One that echoed Gen. Saltzman’s testimony is the critical need to invest in upgrading infrastructure at the nation’s two main launch sites in Florida and California to handle the dramatically increasing launch rate.

The Space Force operates the Eastern Range and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) in Florida and Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. Saltzman pointed out that in 2010 there were only 15 U.S. launches total, 14 from Florida and one from California. This year there will be 93 from Florida alone.  “Our current launch infrastructure is stressed to capacity. … It’s time to revisit the launch infrastructure as we think about what it would take to actually go to the next level of space exploration, space utilities, how much we’re going to put on orbit for national security. We’ve got to build and commit to an infrastructure to support that.”