Is Chinese Space Technology Moving To The Cutting-edge?
Like most defence-oriented industry and technology events, this year’s Military Space Situational Awareness conference in London this April featured the same grave omens from American figures on the nature of China, its ambitions, and the dire ramifications therein. What was new about these conversations was the crystallisation of new and begrudging understandings about the state of Chinese space technology and its ascendancy.
“They used to be our fast-follower, but today they are absolutely are innovating in ways that we didn’t expect them to be,” said Dr. Brendan Mulvaney, Director of the China Aerospace Studies Institute at the National Defence University. “There is no more fast-following. Space is a subset of China’s entire defence ecosystem. In certain areas like quantum computing, the US has become the follower.”
The Chinese space industry, known for its workhorse heavy-lift rocket, the Long March, developed by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), and its “thousand sails” low-Earth orbit internet megaconstellation, Qianfan, headed by Shanghai Spacecom Satellite Technology, China has been long understood as a fast-rising power in global space supremacy.
Many believe Chinese technology has led the world in high-speed trains, solar panels, batteries, and electric vehicles for years now, though who has the edge on crucial and decisive technologies remains disputed.
After years of opaque government projects, China followed the example of the West and opened up its state-dominated space sector to private commerce in 2014, giving rise to hundreds of companies and startups that benefit from decades of industrial funding and active support from the military. With both an ideological focus for dominance in space technology, and a compelling argument for global capital, China appears to possess all the tools they need to become the innovator in space.
“In many areas, China has already caught up with the democratic West, in some places they are close on our heels,” Dr Mulvaney told Via Satellite from the MSSA conference. “Without long-term focus and funding, the advantage that the democracies of the world have enjoyed for decades may slip away,” he said.
Chinese space technology megaprojects
Like many strongman administrations, China has punctuated its designs for advancement in space with a number of high-profile megaprojects intended to awe and inspire. Such landmark efforts possess outsized economic effects, driving legions of scientists and engineers to reimagine what technology can achieve.
Some of these ambitious plans have already been successful, like the Tiangong Space Station, launched in 2021. Since 2023, plans for significant expansion of the station have been public, expanding Tiangong to a weight of 180 tons with the installation of 3D printers, robotics, and space situational awareness systems, as well as the Xuntian space telescope module intended for launch in 2026.
As recently as December of 2024, Tychonauts Cai Xuzhe and Song Lingdong broke the record for longest human spacewalk from the station, clocking up 9 hours and 6 minutes of installations and repairs.
More recent grand designs include the ZhuRi space solar power station, announced in January and Xingshidai AI cloud on-orbit computing constellation, announced in May, both of which promise a decisive technological utility.
Plans for ZhuRi, which means ‘chasing the sun’, were described by Senior Rocket Scientist Long Lehao of the Chinese Academy of Engineering at a Chinese Academy of Sciences lecture as “another Three Gorges Dam above the Earth”, referencing the hydroelectric dam on the Yangtze River, the planet’s largest power station by installed capacity.
This would involve the eventual development of a one-kilometre solar array in orbit capable of delivering 100 billion kWh per year by 2035.
The Xingshidai AI cloud constellation has more conventional goals, comprising a 2,800-strong constellation designed and operated by Chengdu Guoxing Aerospace Technology, also known as ADA Space, launched its first 12 satellites on May 14 aboard a Long March 2D from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre.
ADA Space claims the constellation will be able to transmit data between satellites optical links at 100Gbps speeds, running an 8 billion parameter AI model with compute capable of processing 744 trillion operations per second.
Lofty ambitions like these will prove significant even if only part of their promises are delivered on. Strong industrial policy means both miracles of technology like these and more conventional space technologies like rideshare rockets and LEO broadband see ironclad subsidy support that Western nations have been hesitant to finance.
If the lead in technological innovation is moving East as was the year in the mid-20th century, we could see another space race between geopolitical power blocs heating up.
The new cold war
Concerns about the proliferation of space power between the world’s significant powers, especially the kind of power that can be of use to military efforts, has spurred theories of a neo-cold war in our century.
A number of presentations at MSSA 2025 illustrated evidence of Russian and Chinese satellite flybys, wherein the spacecraft would propel themselves suspiciously close to American military satellites.
“Our adversaries are increasing the frequency and complexity of their satellite operations, and they keep one-upping and surprising us,” explained Judi Lawless, Strategic Business Development Director at ExoAnalytics during her company’s presentation. “We’re watching our adversary practice flyby techniques against us – keeping us on our toes.”
When Hugh White, Senior Director of Space Domain Awareness Services at Kratos, who gave a similar presentation illustrating Chinese satellite behaviour, was asked to speculate on what such satellites were capable of, he answered ‘a lot’.
“We know that there is downlink & uplink jamming,” he said. “There’s nothing stopping a spy satellite from manoeuvring next to another and broadcasting in the same frequency range, though I’m not aware of that happening intentionally.”
While there’s limited evidence about what Chinese satellites are doing when making such flybys, what’s obvious is that they are performing rather advanced orbital manoeuvres to remain in the vicinity of certain satellites, as close as the single-digit kilometres. Within such distances, it’s easy to imagine what an advanced set of orbital robotic mechanisms, or a dedicated suite of cybersecurity tools could achieve, though nothing so sensational has yet occurred between two unfriendly space platforms.
After watching both presentations, Dr. Mulvaney echoed his concerns about what SSA trackers were seeing: “From developing new tactics, techniques, and procedures, to practicing them on orbit, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) continues to advance their space capabilities rapidly,” he said. “This accomplishes both a training and deterrence aspect, i.e. they are demonstrating the capability, capacity, and willingness to expend a lot of ‘Delta V’ to manoeuvre their satellites in new and assertive ways.”
He went on to concede that China was a crucial member of the international community, not least in space, and that scientific and regulatory collaboration was still highly beneficial, but that the West needed to be clear-eyed in the dual-use nature of space technologies, and how the Party-State apparatus of China will likely leverage those technologies to its gain.
“Space power and anti-satellite weapons are proliferating,” warned Dr. Bleddyn Bowen, an Associate Professor in Astropolitics at Durham University who addressed MSSA 2025. “Earth orbit represents a hostile coastline flank over our heads capable of enabling or disabling military operations and critical infrastructure. We all share that flank.”
For now, the opportunities to de-escalate geopolitical tensions remain present and productive, though a more concerning climate of instability exacerbated by powerful technological tools in space is becoming more visible. The significance of orbital capability have never been more relevant.
link
