Space Force Warns That China Practices “Dogfighting” With Satellites
China has been reported to be actively stalking American space satellites.
The U.S. Space Force (USSF) has raised concerns about China’s advancements in space warfare, particularly its recent demonstration of “dogfighting” maneuvers involving satellites.
General Michael Guetlein, Vice Chief of Space Operations, revealed that five Chinese satellites were observed performing synchronized and controlled proximity operations in low Earth orbit during 2024.
“With our commercial assets, we have observed five different objects in space maneuvering in and out and around each other in synchronicity and in control,” Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. Michael Guetlein said during the McAleese Defense Programs Conference in Washington. “That’s what we call dogfighting in space. They are practicing tactics, techniques and procedures to do on-orbit space operations from one satellite to another.”
A service spokesperson later elaborated on Guetlein’s comments, saying the operation occurred in 2024 and involved three Shiyan-24C experimental satellites and two other Chinese experimental spacecraft, the Shijian-605 A and B. The Shijian-6 systems are believed to have a signals intelligence mission.
The exercise showcased the country’s ability to perform complex maneuvers in orbit, referred to as rendezvous and proximity operations, which involve not only navigating around other objects but also inspecting them.
Guetlein listed the satellite dogfighting demonstration alongside several other concerning activities from “near-peer” U.S. adversaries. That includes Russia’s 2019 demonstration of a “nesting doll” capability, where one satellite released a smaller spacecraft that then performed several stalking maneuvers near a U.S. satellite.
𝗕𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗞𝗜𝗡𝗚: China Practicing ‘Dogfighting in Space,’ US Space Force Says
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Dogfighting refers to close-range combat, but the term is applied differently depending on the context—on Earth, it traditionally involves animals or aerial combat. Despite the popular “Star Wars” imagery, dogfighing in space currently consists of orbital maneuvering between satellites.
These demonstrations highlight a narrowing technological gap between the US and its competitors, prompting concerns about the potential for hostile actions against American satellites. And while Russian satellites have advanced capabilities, China has been reportedly stalking American space satellites.
A representative of Colorado-based space tracking firm LeoLabs confirmed that the company had observed the Chinese demonstration of what are known in the space community as rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO) using its network of ground-based radar — as well as another, ongoing case involving Russian satellites.
“The Russians are right in the middle of a three-spacecraft RPO,” the LeoLabs rep added.
Both countries in the past have demonstrated RPO ability with two spacecraft moving closely around each other in LEO, raising Defense Department concerns. US officials have said that China further has been using several satellites to stalk US government and commercial satellites stationed in geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO).
The general wrapped-up his remarks with a call to readjust USSF culture and training to reflect the new capabilities.
Guetlein’s comments follow aggressive calls from Space Force leaders for more resources to establish “space superiority” and use military force—including offensive weapons—to control the space domain.
To get after the service’s new “space superiority” mission, Guetlein said the service needs to change its culture and training, and buy new kit. “We’re only going to be as good as the amount of resources that we’re willing to put towards space superiority,” he said.
China is practicing ‘dogfighting’ in space, Space Force says | The capability gap between the U.S. and its competitors has “significantly narrowed.” https://t.co/Mz2OjJmvuc
— Defense One (@DefenseOne) March 19, 2025
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Comments
It’s not very tricky. You can point any direction while traveling in another direction. It’s just a question of arming the satellite you’re using.
The real problem is the debris accumulation, which stays up there. Once it gets dense enough, it produces new debris by hitting stuff accidentally and the whole thing cascades to no usable orbits at all. Called the Kessler syndrome.
If their satellite jockeys are anywhere near as good as their virus butchers, we can look forward to that cascade before Christmas.
We are doing some shady stuff up there ourselves with the Air Force’s new space plane.
It goes up there for a year at a time, changes orbits, and comes back down.
It would not surprise me if we have already placed space mines near Chinese satellites
Ready to neutralize them if war breaks out.
Every article like this convinces me more that the movie, “The Martian” was designed to make China look good.
b/c it takes violence to stop the violent
If Trump had not created the space force, we would not know this and certainly not be prepared to counter it. After balloon-Biden allowed numerous spy balloons to overfly the US, to him, a space force made no sense.
It would be a shame if one or more asteroids crashed into China.
I hope we are prepared to counter these efforts by attaching offensive and defensive capabilities to our satellites and developing offensive satellites of our own. It doesn’t take much to damage a satellite and we are probably more at risk than China or Russia because of our greater reliance on GPS and global communication.
Actually vast satellite arrays like Musk’s starlink might be the answer. Sure take out 100 or even 500 satellites but that wouldn’t degrade capabilities if there are 15,000 or 20,000 satellites in the array.
Agreed. If a war started, China would disable our GPS satellites within minutes. I hope we have the capability to return the favor.
If Musk has 15,000 satellites, it would be useful if a few hunter-killers were hidden within that cluster. But they would need propellant systems to get them up to the higher orbits of the GPS and other satellites.
The sad part is that outer space was supposed to be demilitarized, The Russians of course immediately started militarization and the chinese won’t adhere to any treaty anyways. I’m not sure how much we’ve actually done and there is an awful lot we need to be able to do. I’m concerned more about the chinese because they have a lot more money, we facilitate their stealing of our technology, and we are much more likely to get into conflict because we abut each other in the Pacific.
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