Emerging Risks in Space From China and Russia

Summary

Emerging technologies include not only novel technical inventions but also repurposing existing technologies into new tactics, techniques, and procedures. In recent years, Russia and China have upended the way the space domain has operated for decades. For example, China has repurposed the Cold War-era concept of a “fractional orbital bombardment system” to deploy a novel hypersonic vehicle. Russia has deployed a test satellite in a program for placing a nuclear device in Earth’s orbit. As the international terrestrial arms control treaty framework has steadily eroded, the risk of conflict in space has grown and transformed. Keeping ahead of the dynamics of disruption in the domain will require imagination and creativity. This article reviews the emerging risk factors in space enabled by new technological applications from China and Russia and recommends using a deeper understanding of adversaries’ strategic thought as a foundational premise from which to develop multidomain technical, operational, and policy countermeasures.

An Evolving Battlespace

Recent events have indicated increasing volatility in space. Gen. Stephen Whiting, Commander of the U.S. Space Command, testified in early 2024 that “The [People’s Republic of China] is moving breathtakingly fast in space. America must rapidly increase the timeliness, quality, and quantity of our critical national space and missile defense systems to match China’s speed and maintain our advantage” [1].

On the quantity metric, China has developed its space capabilities rapidly and robustly. According to Maj. Gen. Greg Gagnon, Chief of Space Operations for Intelligence, China has launched more than 400 satellites in the past two years; but more importantly, “[These are] satellites that are designed with a proliferated architecture.…An architecture that isn’t designed for efficiency and cost effectiveness, [but] an architecture that’s designed to go to war and sustain in war” [2]. As much of the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean becomes a de facto “weapons engagement zone” for U.S. forces, China is increasingly able to hold key assets at risk in any kinetic scenario.

Russia has also made clear that it intends to play a disruptive role in space. In May 2024, United States government (USG) officials, including Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy John Plumb and Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Deterrence, and Stability Mallory Stewart, offered the first official details about Russia’s program for developing a nuclear detonation antisatellite (ASAT) weapon in Earth orbit [3]. Secretary Stewart focused on Russia’s veto of a United Nations (UN) Security Council resolution reaffirming the international commitment to prohibit the deployment of weapons of mass destruction in space like nuclear weapons [4]. She also disclosed the existence of an on-orbit testbed satellite, which analysts quickly identified as Cosmos-2553, in an orbit at an unusually high altitude and within the inner Van Allen radiation belt (Figure 1) [5]. Russia’s actions in space and at the UN indicate its potential willingness to abrogate its treaty commitments on arms control in space.

Agents of Disruption

In recent years, China and Russia have challenged the predominant security environment in space using new technologies and novel deployments of legacy technologies. Since 2015, China has embarked on an organizational transformation of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), resulting in the creation of the PLA Rocket Force and the Strategic Support Force, the latter of which has recently been again reorganized into three functional forces—the Military Space Force (军事航天部队), the Cyberspace Force (网络空间部), and the Information Support Force (信息支援部) [6]. Combined with a sustained shipbuilding campaign as well as a robust space launch cadence, China has implemented a strategic plan to achieve expeditionary capabilities and extend the reach of its information and fire-support services into new theaters of operation. In the May 2024 “Joint Sword-2024A” (联合利剑-2024A) exercise [7], some of these capabilities were described by a PLA Navy military analyst as establishing a “firepower coverage network” (nicknamed a “firepower combo platter” since one could pick and choose the shooter from any domain or region). This network was established by weaving multidomain platforms together by “point, line, and surface” (点，线，面) into what Western analysts would term an “integrated reconnaissance-strike complex.” This operational exercise helps illustrate how space capabilities are increasingly critical enablers for China’s evolving operational doctrine and expanding force posture.

In space, China’s disruptive role can be dated back to 2007. The first destructive ASAT test in a generation occurred when the People’s Republic of China (PRC) destroyed a defunct weather satellite with a direct-ascent Dongneng-1 missile, generating a massive debris cloud [8]. In 2019, the PRC launched an experimental hypersonic vehicle through space that surprised analysts with its “fractional orbit” trajectory [9]. Distinct from a suborbital flight, a fractional orbit reaches orbital velocity, but the object decelerates to reenter the atmosphere before completing an orbit. China refused to comment on the hypersonic test, or a subsequent one, instead conflating it with a prior spaceplane flight [10]. The test was interpreted by analysts and experts in terms of strategic nuclear employment, echoing the rationale for the Soviet-era Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS).

Russia has also conducted kinetic ASAT tests in recent years. A provocative direct-ascent Nudol missile intercept in 2021 destroyed a defunct Cosmos satellite, generating debris that threatened the crew of the International Space Station, including two cosmonauts aboard at the time [11]. The crew sheltered in their return capsule lifeboats during the most dangerous initial passes through the debris cloud, and operations were halted temporarily [12]. By threatening its own personnel, Russia sent a costly signal to better demonstrate resolve to international observers. Additionally, Russia conducted apparent on-orbital ASAT tests using high-velocity projectiles [13]:

In 2017, Cosmos 2521 released a subsatellite, Cosmos 2523, at a high velocity, possibly testing an orbital projectile weapon.…Cosmos 2542 potentially performed similar projectile weapons testing, launching an object with a relative velocity of between 140 and 186 meters per second.

Beyond kinetic strike capabilities, Russia has also advanced development of nuclear ASAT weapons in space. These developments demonstrate that Russia intends to remain a major space power capable of threatening international security. Given the asymmetric dependencies of its military operations on space-based assets vs. those of its adversaries, Russia may be particularly interested in acting as a spoiler in space.

Reconsidering Concepts of Operations (CONOPS)

The remainder of this article will examine CONOPS for employing a FOBS-hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV) hybrid system and nuclear detonation ASAT. Other developments in space, such as satellite remote proximity operations, non-Earth imaging from space (satellite-to-satellite imaging), cyber-electronic exploitation, directed energy, and more, all merit additional scrutiny. However, given scope constraints, the following discussion will focus on the FOBS-HGV and nuclear ASAT examples and their strategic implications.

FOBs and HGVs

The Soviet Union first developed the concept of operations for fractional orbit weapons systems in the 1960s. Article IV of the Outer Space Treaty (OST) commits states parties “not to place in orbit around the earth any objects carrying nuclear weapons…or station such weapons in outer space in any other manner” [14]. For compliance purposes, however, a nuclear weapon in space would not be considered in violation short of a full orbit. Hence, a fractional orbital bombardment system would remain in compliance with the letter of the treaty. The “Globalnaya Raketa-1” or “Global Missile-1” system, described by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as the “Fractional Orbital Bombardment System,” would launch nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) over southern polar regions (e.g., Figure 2), avoiding early generations of North American Air Defense ballistic missile early warning (BMEW) radars [15]. Yet, the original Soviet system quickly became obsolete due to the development of additional radar sites and BMEW satellites, such as the Defense Support Program series. Therefore, by the 1980s, the strategic logic of the FOBS no longer held significant competitive advantage over direct-strike ICBMs, leading the FOBS launchers to be “decommissioned under the terms of the SALT-2 treaty” [15].

The PRC’s version of FOBS could serve a similar strategic role. U.S. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall disclosed that the PRC system resembled the Soviet FOBS in its flight profile and asserted that China is “acquiring a first-strike capability” [16]. A hypersonic glide vehicle would be more difficult to track using satellite systems designed to warn against ICBM launches, but new sensors tailored for maintaining custody of hypersonic vehicles while in flight are in development. The Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor system (Figure 3) will enter a multiyear on-orbit testing phase in 2024 [17]. Therefore, the window of competitive advantage for a PRC nuclear FOBS like the Soviet version may be narrow. In addition, China’s doctrine of “integrated strategic deterrence” mixes conventional and strategic deterrence “which could present severe disambiguation problems” for analysts trying to understand the CONOPS of such a platform [18]. China’s policy of strategic ambiguity regarding nuclear and conventional deterrence creates deliberate uncertainties in contrast with the decades-long tradition of transparency and verification for nuclear weapons based on the international nuclear arms control treaty framework.

Other technical aspects of the system raise important questions about the employment possibilities of an integrated FOBS-HGV. To date, analysts have focused on the strategic utility of FOBS for a nuclear strike [19]:

The use of an orbital bombardment system could increase PLA power projection capabilities against bases and territories globally, including targets in the 50 states. The use of an orbital bombardment system can complicate U.S. missile defenses by forcing the US to defend against joint and combined arms attacks from multiple directions.

Adding an HGV to FOBS introduces an additional element of uncertainty and agility. HGVs travel slower than ballistic reentry vehicles but are more difficult to intercept during the glide phase because they can maneuver. Still, they are not suited for every application. Travel at hypersonic speeds in the upper atmosphere generates a plasma envelope around the vehicle, degrading access to global command, control, communications, and computers intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance networks and creating high infrared and electromagnetic signatures. As a general feature of hypersonic flight, this makes HGVs most effective against fixed targets but largely impractical for mobile high-value assets like ships.

The 2019 PRC hypersonic test was groundbreaking not just because it entered an orbital trajectory but also because it demonstrated a capability no other nation has developed. After the hypersonic glide vehicle reentered the atmosphere, it released a secondary vehicle while traveling at hypersonic speeds, surprising USG observers: “Government scientists were struggling to understand the capability, which the US does not currently possess, adding that China’s achievement appeared ‘to defy the laws of physics’” [10]. While USG analysts’ assessment of the hypersonic test flights remains necessarily closed, it is noteworthy that this element of the testing entered the public discourse. As the Financial Times explains [20]:

Experts at DARPA, the Pentagon’s advanced research agency, remain unsure how China managed to fire countermeasures from a vehicle travelling at hypersonic speeds.…Military experts have been poring over data related to the test to understand how China mastered the technology. They are also debating the purpose of the projectile, which was fired by the hypersonic vehicle with no obvious target of its own, before plunging into the water.

This secondary payload could have been a multiple independently targetable, reentry vehicle warhead, a countermeasure, or something entirely different. In a nuclear context, reentry vehicles and countermeasures have been part of warhead development for decades. In a conventional context, the secondary vehicle may have addressed the fundamental limitation of hypersonic vehicles in fixing mobile targets by providing “target update” on a local scale.

The conventional use case aligns with evolving doctrinal discourse within the PRC in recent years. PRC doctrine has emphasized the role of multidomain warfare since at least 2013 [21]:

Space and cyberspace increasingly constitute important battlefields after the traditional battlefields of land, sea, and air. A new type of five-dimensional battlespace of land, sea, air, space, and cyber is currently taking shape, which is wide in scope, hyper-dimensional, and combines the tangible and intangible. Battlefield control is moving from control of the land, sea, and air toward control of space and cyber.

“Multidimensional” includes both multidomain and multidirectional operations. This doctrine was demonstrated in the Joint Sword-2024A exercise in which multiple firepower platforms surrounded Taiwan to execute “joint firepower strikes” from multiple vectors [7]. PRC defense analysts have also advocated for using autonomy and speed to achieve decision dominance over a more formidable adversary. One theme in this discourse is developing the next generation of military doctrine to supplant “network-centric warfare” pioneered by the U.S. military. Hypersonic weapons play a key role in this analysis of future warfare, as described by one PLA analyst who proposes one potential successor concept as “energy-centric warfare” (能量中心战) [22]:

“Energy-centric warfare” stresses increasing the speed of the link which is “attack”: the specific way to do so is to develop new concept weapons such as near space hypersonic weapons, electromagnetic rail guns, and directed energy weapons, shortening the time between detection and destruction of a target.

This statement is made in the context of achieving a faster observe, orient, decide, act (OODA) loop kill chain to achieve effects before an adversary can react. Notably, the author contrasts this concept with U.S. concepts of operations, saying: “traditional ‘network centric warfare’ emphasizes delivery of information, whereas ‘energy centric warfare’ emphasizes delivery of firepower…whether information or firepower, both are categories of energy” [22].

Compared to the U.S. way of war where information dominance is assumed, PRC defense analysts posit that “information agility” is more important than information dominance. Per one PRC aerospace industry official, “Speed and agility are no longer most important. The key to winning air operations, electromagnetic operations, or cyber operations is ‘information agility,’ the priority and mobility of information” [23]. The argument is that flexible networks and built-in autonomy will enable the rapid delivery of effects needed to get inside an adversary’s OODA loop. In contrast, there has been little evidence to indicate a shift in PRC nuclear doctrine toward a first-strike posture and FOBS-HGV role for such, even as Western analysts gravitate toward that possibility [24]. Under the PRC doctrinal concept of “integrated strategic deterrence,” the potential use of a FOBS-HGV platform in a conventional strike role should be more fully considered, especially given the unexpected capabilities the PRC demonstrated in its flight testing.

If the PRC FOBS is not a new nuclear first-strike weapon but rather a conventional strike platform, the observed secondary munition could be part of a solution for fixing mobile targets like aircraft carriers, particularly under degraded or denied information access conditions. Integrating artificial intelligence capability, “intelligentization” (智能化) in PLA parlance, and providing local sensor data from the secondary vehicle could enable the warhead to rapidly find and fix a mobile target independent of mission controllers.

The 2015 book Light Warfare (光战争) described the advantage of speed in integrating detection and strike in this way: “As photonic weapons emerge, so will a genuine ‘one-second kill’ [capability], bringing about the true meaning of detect-and-destroy” [25]. Light Warfare proposed a thesis around photonic, electromagnetic, and hypersonic weapons as part of a hypervelocity suite of new-concept weapons that would supplant traditional firepower. An integrated FOBS-HGV system could represent such a development with the convergence of sensor and weapon (“查打一体”), integrating detection and destruction into a single platform operating on an independent kill chain.

China’s uninhabited aerial vehicle or drone development programs connote the fusion of sensors and shooter into a single platform. Operationally, such a platform could take advantage of continued connectivity during the orbital phase of flight and rely on the deployable sensor platform to refine its targeting data when entering the terminal phase. Even the potential for such a weapon serves deterrence purposes. The ability to hold targets at risk using a variety of antiship cruise, ballistic, and hypersonic missiles at a variety of ranges is a core feature of “integrated strategic deterrence” [26]. Introducing a FOBS-HGV option would add new approach vectors for conducting coordinated saturation attacks against key targets like aircraft carriers. In a multivector attack, the defender must allocate scarce assets against the most pressing threat. A FOBS-HGV may be useful in drawing enough of these electronic and kinetic assets to allow other attack vectors to succeed.

Nuclear Detonation in Space

New concepts of operations for nuclear detonation in the upper atmosphere or in space are also reemerging (Figure 4). The 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty, the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, and other arms control treaties were a direct consequence of the United States’ 1962 Starfish Prime high-altitude nuclear test (Figure 5) and the realization that nuclear effects in space could lead to unintended consequences for global security and commerce [27]. The norm against nuclear detonations in space now seems to be challenged.

Assistant Secretary Stewart described Russia placing a testbed satellite in an “unusual” orbit, later identified as Cosmos-2553, launching it in February 2022 to an apogee of 2,000 km, and reportedly carrying a synthetic aperture radar primary payload [28]. This region of space is at the upper limit of low Earth orbit (LEO) and passes through the inner Van Allen radiation belt. Russia’s deployment of a testbed satellite within the inner Van Allen belt suggests a CONOPS for rapidly pumping the flux density of the inner belt, raising the radiation environment in LEO. Assistant Secretary Plumb suggested this possibility in his testimony before the House Armed Services Committee in May 2024, saying that most satellites in LEO are unhardened against radiation and their electronics would quickly degrade under elevated exposure [29]. Belt pumping could energize the magnetic south Atlantic anomaly as well as expand the volumetric space of the radiation belt, creating regions of high exposure as satellites repeatedly pass through. Such a weapon would be indiscriminate, with wide-ranging effects. Timed well, interactions with solar activity could exacerbate the effect. During and before its invasion of Ukraine, Russia has signaled an increasing willingness to employ nuclear weapons for tactical purposes.

In the initial phases of the Russia-Ukraine War in 2022, Russia repeatedly raised the possibility of using nuclear weapons to deter assistance flowing to Ukraine from NATO and other international partners. Longtime Russia analyst Masha Gessen posited that Vladimir Putin, with “grandiose” self-regard, desired to establish new nuclear doctrine for the world by raising the prospect of employing tactical nuclear strikes [30]. In 2018, Putin announced several novel-concept nuclear platforms, including the Tsirkon sea-launched hypersonic missile, the Avangard hypersonic HGV, the Kinzhal air-launched hypersonic missile, the Sarmat heavy ICBM-HGV, the Burvestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile, and the Poseidon nuclear-powered underwater drone/torpedo [31]. Some of these systems have passed initial operating capability and are in service. The Kinzhal has been employed in a conventional role in the war in Ukraine. In June 2024, Russia exercised tactical nuclear strike capabilities in the southern and eastern military districts and with Belarus, signaling potential “changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine” in the future [32]. A space-based nuclear weapon would align with these other destabilizing nuclear developments, even if stationing such a weapon in orbit would violate the Outer Space Treaty.

Russia has also demonstrated a willingness to attack assets critical to space-based services. Its invasion of Ukraine began with a multipronged cyberattack against ViaSat user terminals, which disabled receivers across Ukraine and the rest of Europe [33]. Russian operational planners clearly grasped the importance of space-enabled communications and sought to disable these services during the initial phase of the war. When the Starlink communications network stepped in to provide key distributed communications services to Ukraine, its network was also attacked by cyberelectronic means, possibly via “Tobol electronic warfare systems” or “the truck-mounted Tirada-2 system” [34]. Although proliferated satellite architectures are resilient against point attacks, such as via kinetic weapons, they are more susceptible to area effect attacks, such as by cyberelectronic or nuclear means. Russia’s frustration with the provision of satellite services to Ukraine during the war has been evident, and targeting Starlink is a prelude for countering proliferated architectures.

PRC researchers have also expressed anxiety about Starlink’s resilience. They have proposed methods for countering not only that specific network but also other proliferated constellations, such as the disaggregated satellite networks being developed by the U.S. Space Development Agency (SDA) [35]. These lines of research include use of nuclear detonation devices to target LEO satellites. PRC researchers at the Northwest Institute of Nuclear Technology (西北核技术研究所) identified ways of modulating the shape and size of a nuclear radiological cloud in LEO by adjusting detonation altitude and yield [36]. Their findings suggest ways of using a nuclear explosion to ionize upper atmospheric particles to project a radioactive plume into the orbital trajectories of satellites passing within the area. Distinct from Russia’s apparent CONOPS of Van Allen belt pumping, the PRC concept uses nuclear detonation atmospheric effects to produce a more targeted effect but one that would still disrupt the LEO regime in an indiscriminate manner.

Other recent academic papers published by PRC scholars also deal with the dynamics of high-altitude nuclear explosions. The Beijing Institute of Technology (北京理工大学) is a premier research institution for weapons research and development, supervised by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Researchers from the Institute’s School of Mechatronical Engineering (机电学院) and the Northwest Institute of Nuclear Technology recently modeled fission debris from high-altitude nuclear detonations, describing the types of energetic particles and their interaction with each other and the Earth’s magnetic field to describe the fluid dynamics of the area of effect in three dimensions and over time [37]. Unlike the Russian concept of operations suggested by USG officials, this kind of atmospheric detonation would not violate the letter of the Outer Space Treaty. While such detonations would likely violate the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, China, the United States, and Russia have not ratified the treaty, and it remains pending as enforceable international law [38]. SDA Director Derek Tournear has addressed the risk to the Agency’s strategy of proliferated architectures: “We know, obviously, that [nuclear detonation in space] would have a major impact on our architecture and our capabilities if something like that went off in space, that it would have a major impact on the world” [39]. Calling it a “black-swan event,” Tournear tacitly acknowledged that there is no readily available solution to defending against such an attack.

Conclusions

Space is becoming increasingly unstable with China and Russia’s introduction of new CONOPS. While certain technical capabilities like the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor system can mitigate such risks, the fundamental danger arises from miscalculation. Cold War archetypes for understanding these technologies may offer a starting point, but both potential adversaries have evolved their operational doctrine since that era. These technologies must be understood in the context of new strategic postures that emphasize the importance of decision-dominance, speed, and autonomy for China. For Russia, the employment of new nuclear systems must be placed in the context of its leadership: “The problem is not so much that Putin is irrational; the problem is that there is a world in which it is rational for him to move ever closer to a nuclear strike, and most Western analysts cannot comprehend the logic of that world” [30]. If Putin’s Russia aims to play a spoiler role in the global commons, there is the risk of it using its technical advantages in nuclear technology, space launch, and cyber operations to destabilize international security.

China’s Xi Jinping has also served an outsized role in charting the course of China’s military modernization, having directed the PLA to “strive to complete the centenary goal of army building” by 2027 [40]. As China’s terrestrial conflicts become increasingly kinetic and the PLA’s capabilities mature, the impetus to employ new tools to change the terms of confrontation will reach an inflection point. Even if national leadership changes, China and Russia have both embarked on a trajectory that could fundamentally change future space operations. The USG and outside observers must place these new technical capabilities in the context of adversaries’ strategic doctrine and leadership direction to avoid mirror-imaging and limiting the scope of possibilities under which such weapons could be employed.

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Biography

David D. Chen is a senior analyst focusing on aerospace, cyber, and cross-domain emerging technologies and China’s military modernization. He previously held positions at BluePath Labs and CENTRA Technology, Inc., supporting the U.S. intelligence community for over 18 years. Fluent in Mandarin Chinese, he has studied in both China and Taiwan. Mr. Chen holds a master’s degree in international affairs from the University of California San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy.