China Could Develop Antisatellite Weapons in Three Years, Says U.S. Missile Defense Official

A U.S. military official said yesterday that China could be near to developing effective antisatellite weapons that could threaten U.S. superiority in space, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, June 26).

“It is not inconceivable that within about three years we can be challenged at a near peer level in a region,” said Lt. Gen. Kevin Campbell, head of the U.S. Army's Space and Missile Defense Command, in a speech at missile defense conference in Huntsville, Ala.  “That means taking out a number of communications capabilities over a theater of war.”

China in January conducted a successful antisatellite test, in which a converted ballistic missile launched an interceptor that destroyed an aging weather satellite (see GSN, Jan. 19).

In response, the United States has developed a “space alert” system to warn of potential threats to U.S. military equipment in orbit.

“I’m not free to talk about specifics, but the bottom line is we’re thinking about and taking steps to ensure we have a capability … that shows we have freedom of action in space,” Campbell said (Jim Mannion, Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Aug. 14).

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