Chinese satellites are experimenting with increasingly sophisticated maneuvers in space, making U.S. officials uneasy that these orbital behaviors could give Beijing an advantage in a future conflict.
Given the growing complexity of the operations, the Pentagon is enlisting commercial firms to help decipher China’s intentions.
“The government has a growing need for tactical space domain awareness in low Earth orbit,” the Space Force’s Space Systems Command said in a request to industry published in May. The document highlighted a demand for “precise and up-to-the-minute information” on the activities of foreign satellites.
The military’s outreach to the private sector signals concerns that the strategic balance in space is shifting. America has controlled the high ground of orbit since the dawn of the space age, using satellites to guide bombs, coordinate troops and spy on enemies.
That dominance could be slipping away.
China is building satellites that can move, inspect other spacecraft and tow them away. Beijing is also developing weapons that can jam or blind American satellites. The result is a space environment that could become the next battlefield.
“When we’re talking about the Chinese, there’s just been significant growth, and the scale of their capabilities has really been eye watering, especially over the past decade,” said Space Force Chief Master Sergeant Ronald Lerch, deputy chief of space operations for intelligence.
Speaking at a recent Aerospace Corporation space policy forum, Lerch said the U.S. Space Force, in light of China’s advances, finds itself at an inflection point, shifting from a posture of merely supporting satellite infrastructure to becoming a warfighting force that must be capable of protecting and defending U.S. interests in space.
Gen. Michael Guetlein, vice chief of space operations, captured the new reality when he described China’s recent satellite activities as “dogfighting.” The comparison to aerial combat may seem overwrought for machines that drift slowly through the vacuum of space. But Guetlein’s choice of words fundamentally reflects how the military now views the threat from above.
To gain clarity and granularity on what’s happening on orbit, China’s new maneuvers are being followed by commercial companies with specialized tracking technology.
China’s five-satellite ballet
Between late 2023 and December 2024, five Chinese satellites executed a series of close approaches that space analysts called unprecedented due to the number of spacecraft and the complexity of their movements.
The activities involved three Shiyan-24A/B/C spacecraft launched in 2023 and two Shijian-6 05A/B satellites launched in 2021. The satellites performed coordinated flybys, proximity operations at less than one kilometer separation, and potential three-body maneuvers, raising eyebrows across the space policy community.
“These were two sets of satellites — different hardware — that were able to pair up,” said Eric Eiler, a senior space domain awareness engineer at LeoLabs, a commercial firm that tracked the activity. “What they showed is pretty impressive.”
Proximity operations like these are necessary for satellite servicing or debris removal. But they could also inspect, disable or destroy other spacecraft in an armed conflict. Perhaps most importantly, they demonstrate the capabilities China already has on orbit. Eiler said China’s ability to conduct precise rendezvous and proximity operations has evolved rapidly.
That these commercial companies can observe these behaviors, he said, is itself significant. “The good part about being a commercial, unclassified intelligence provider is our data can be shared more freely,” he said.
In order to better detect and interpret satellite maneuvers, space tracking firms are investing in artificial intelligence and adding more sensors to improve the accuracy of their data. “Military customers can bring it into classified environments and pair it with their own information, without disclosing sources or methods,” Eiler said.
Machine-learning tools help analysts pinpoint unusual behaviors, flag anomalies and reduce the time it takes to turn raw data into actionable intelligence. In low Earth orbit (LEO), where satellites zip around the planet every 90 minutes and every second counts.
“We need to keep these timelines on the order of minutes,” Eiler said. “If you allow them to extend into hours or days, that could be too late in a conflict scenario.”
AI can now detect which satellites are maneuvering and predict their next steps. The faster analysts can maintain custody of these moving targets, the better they can assess intent. Frequent maneuvers, Eiler noted, can cause a satellite to disappear from its predicted track — something U.S. military leaders cannot afford during a crisis.
“We’re trying to find that needle in the haystack,” he said. “We want to pass that intel to the Space Force in time for them to do something with it.”
Crowded orbits, hidden threats
The Space Force is also watching China’s efforts to deploy massive LEO satellite constellations. One proposed network includes 14,000 satellites to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink. Another, a government-led effort with 13,000 satellites, is aimed at expanding China’s strategic communications footprint.
As the population of satellites grows, so does the risk that China could conceal surveillance or anti-satellite systems among benign-looking spacecraft.
“It’s not just what they can do — but what they can do while we aren’t watching,” Eiler said.
To monitor such a dynamic environment, U.S. officials say they’ll need to integrate commercial and government sensors into a cohesive network, leveraging each sector’s strengths.
Norbert Pouzin, a senior analyst at French firm Aldoria, said China’s orbital maneuvers reflect a shifting strategic posture. Like the U.S., he said, China appears to be integrating “control of the orbital domain” into its broader defense doctrine.
“China is advancing its ability to track, approach, disorient or neutralize an opposing satellite,” Pouzin said. “This is about space control.”
Refueling and docking
Not all of China’s demonstrations are happening in LEO. At geostationary altitude — 22,236 miles above Earth — Chinese satellites in recent weeks have been testing refueling and docking.
COMSPOC, a space domain awareness software provider, has followed two Chinese spacecraft — Shijian-21 and Shijian-25 — conducting what appeared to be a rendezvous and refueling operation.
Shijian-21, launched in October 2021, first drew attention in early 2022 when commercial firm ExoAnalytic Solutions reported that it grabbed a defunct Chinese satellite and towed it to a graveyard orbit. U.S. officials dubbed it a “grappling satellite,” capable of posing a direct threat to other nations’ high-value GEO assets.
Shijian‑25 is a refueling demonstration spacecraft launched in January 2025. During the Chinese maneuvers in recent weeks, COMSPOC also observed U.S. GEO surveillance satellites USA 270 and 271 maneuvering nearby, likely monitoring the activity.
The Chinese spacecraft came within a kilometer of each other on June 13 and appeared to come together June 30, COMSPOC officials said.
This operation would mark China’s first orbital refueling in GEO, said Robert Hall, director of special projects at COMSPOC.
Towing and refueling technology enables commercial and civil space operations, but it also strengthens the People’s Liberation Army’s capabilities in orbit.
“China is very good at dual-use,” Hall said. “Naturally, DoD sees this, and it makes the hairs on the back of people’s necks stand up.”
The company will continue to monitor Shijian-25 and will be looking at whether it might refuel other Chinese satellites, Hall said.
Unknowable objectives
Given how rapidly satellites are able to maneuver, the industry is coming up with novel tools to detect movements that happen too fast or are too subtle for traditional surveillance networks.
Slingshot Aerospace, for example, has built algorithms to flag anomalous behavior in large satellite constellations
“We can’t ever really fully know what their objective is,” said Belinda Marchand, Slingshot’s chief science officer. “But we can speculate — and we can shorten the time it takes to alert decision-makers.”
The U.S. military’s own sensor network, the Space Surveillance Network, was built for a different era, Hall noted.
“It works well for static objects,” he said. “But in today’s dynamic environment, it can’t always keep up.”
ExoAnalytic Solutions has seen China test advanced signals intelligence tactics and practice what the company believes to be “co-orbital anti-satellite” tactics, said ExoAnalytic’s vice president Clinton Clark.
“That’s a real departure from what we considered routine a decade ago,” Clark said.
“They’re not just launching a lot of satellites — they’re launching sophisticated ones with tactical capabilities.”
LEO activity impacts launches
Brien Flewelling, director of strategic program development at ExoAnalytic, said U.S. space launch operators are increasingly worried about how China’s maneuvers could impact the launch windows for space missions.
LEO is already crowded, he noted, and launch windows — the specific periods of time during which a spacecraft must be launched in order to successfully reach its intended destination or orbit — can last just seconds. If China begins maneuvering its satellites unpredictably at scale, Flewelling said, it could disrupt launches or force delays.
“All they have to do is a lot of uncoordinated maneuvers, and you’re not sure where they are,” he cautioned. “That is a tactic that could be used to enhance the risk for the adversary.”
China’s satellites are also performing unusually large velocity changes, Flewelling said, “about 50 to 100 times larger than the average GEO satellite maneuver.”
Such operations require significant fuel and planning, and they’re not typical maintenance moves.
“They’re showing off what they can do,” Flewelling said. “And everyone’s paying attention.”
This article first appeared in the July 2025 issue of SpaceNews Magazine.