The U.S. Director of National Intelligence says China's upcoming space station poses a threat to America's space leadership. This is part of an annual intelligence report that suggests the Chinese space station forms part of Beijing's bigger effort to compromise U.S. assets in space.
The U.S. Director of National Intelligence released a report last month claiming that China's upcoming space station forms part of China's plans to dominate space.
This adds to experts calling for the U.S. to prepare a space defence system.
Many claim that the U.S.'s current satellite infrastructure is very vulnerable to attack. Seeing that much of the U.S. military's strategy is based on satellite technology like GPS, this does seem to be an important issue for the U.S.
The intelligence report also said that China is readying counter-space weapons to target U.S. satellites. "Beijing continues to train its military space elements and field new ground- and space-based anti-satellite weapons," the report said.
That means they're developing things such as spacecraft that can intercept and capture U.S. satellites with robotic arms, or simply destroy the satellites.
The report states that China is already operating ground-based anti-satellite missiles intended to destroy satellites in Earth orbit, and ground-based lasers that can blind or damage space-based sensors in Earth orbit.
In February, researchers at the Center for Strategic and International Studies released a report titled "Defense Against the Dark Arts in Space: Protecting Space Systems from Counterspace Weapons". It details countermeasures the U.S. can take to defend against anti-satellite weapons.
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