The Pentagon has reported that China is rapidly building a large force of space weapons, including sophisticated anti-satellite missiles, lasers, jammers, orbiting killer robots and cybertools, to “blind and deafen” a war enemy,.
The details of Beijing’s growing space arms arsenal was released last week in Oentagon’s annual report to Congress on the Chinese military.
The report says “The [People’s Liberation Army] continues to acquire and develop a range of counter-space capabilities and related technologies, including kinetic-kill missiles, ground-based lasers, and orbiting space robots, as well as expanding space surveillance capabilities, which can monitor objects in space within their field of view and enable counter-space actions,” the 195-page report states.
The report said Chinese space forces and related support elements continue to “mature rapidly.”
The Pentagon report, based on Defense Intelligence Agency information, discloses for the first time that China is working on space-based weapons capable of attacking enemy targets on Earth’s surface.
“Since at least 2006, the government-affiliated academic community in China began investigating aerospace engineering aspects associated with space-based kinetic weapons — generally a class of weapon used to attack ground, sea, or air targets from orbit,” the report said.
