Heritage: China Threatens U.S. Space Superiority

China’s space program is threatening U.S. space superiority according to a new report from the Heritage Foundation.

A 2010 Chinese test involving two ballistic missile launches that resulted in a deliberate collision, and a 2010 mission where two Chinese satellites “engaged in orbital maneuvers that appears to include ‘bumping’ into each other” that could be useful for “practicing docking maneuvers or anti-satellite operations” are examples of Chinese activities that cause concern according to the report’s author, Dean Cheng.

“The U.S. government needs to take steps to ensure that it maintains the ability to secure space superiority. Such a position of strength is necessary for the Sino-American space relationship to develop along the oft-touted lines of mutual respect and mutual benefit,” he continues.

Cheng recommends that the United States must maintain a “robust” military space capability; increase alternatives to space systems to reduce our reliance on them; and increase knowledge of Chinese space capabilities by expanding the pool of people able to analyze China’s space capabilities “in the original language.” To that latter end, interaction between U.S. and Chinese space experts is “probably both inevitable and necessary” in his view. These interactions should not be “guided by the hope that American openness will be reciprocated,” but instead “predicated on efforts at mutual, equitable interaction.” Congress therefore should specify the areas where the Department of Defense, NASA and NOAA can and cannot interact with the Chinese, he advised.