Beijing sees American dependence on satellites for reconnaissance, communications and precision strikes as a vulnerability, according to the assessment. The People’s Liberation Army probably views attacks on those systems as a way to discourage or prevent other countries from intervening in a conflict.
“The PLA’s objectives include space dominance: the ability to control the space-enabled information sphere and deny its adversaries their own space-based information gathering and communications capabilities,” the report said. Its weapons development gives Chinese commanders options ranging from temporary interference to the permanent destruction of spacecraft.
China is building those capabilities alongside a much larger satellite surveillance network of its own. As of July 2026, it operated more than 510 intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance satellites, more than three times the number in 2018.
That network can support the monitoring, tracking and targeting of U.S. and allied forces worldwide, particularly across the Indo-Pacific, the DIA said. Better optical imaging, radar and signals intelligence have increased China’s ability to monitor aircraft carriers, expeditionary strike groups and deployed air wings throughout the Pacific.
China’s growing constellation of low Earth orbit satellites can provide images of any location on Earth within 30 minutes, according to the report. Satellites in geosynchronous orbit provide persistent coverage that, combined with other technologies, helps China track objects across the Indo-Pacific.
To threaten an opponent’s spacecraft, China already has multiple ground-based lasers capable of disrupting, degrading or damaging satellites in low Earth orbit. By the late 2020s, it may field space-based directed-energy systems and more powerful ground-based systems capable of reaching satellites in higher orbits, the agency said.
Beijing also probably intends to deploy additional anti-satellite missiles capable of destroying spacecraft in low, medium and high orbits. A Chinese launch that reached an altitude of 30,000 kilometers in 2013 suggested a potential capability against satellites in geosynchronous orbit, although the DIA did not describe that capability as confirmed.
Using destructive missiles would carry lasting risks for China’s own satellite networks and those of countries outside a conflict. China’s 2007 test against a defunct weather satellite generated more than 3,500 pieces of trackable debris, with more than 2,400 still in orbit and expected to remain a collision hazard for decades.
Other Chinese programs involve technologies that can service spacecraft but could also be used against them, including robotic systems capable of grappling satellites. In January 2022, Shijian-21 moved a derelict BeiDou navigation satellite into a graveyard orbit above geosynchronous orbit.
The DIA also questioned whether some Chinese satellites were operating as Beijing had publicly described. TJS-3, identified by China as an experimental communications satellite, approached within 10 kilometers of other countries’ spacecraft multiple times in 2023, behavior the agency said was largely inconsistent with its stated mission.
Jamming offers another means of denying satellite services, with possible disruption to civilian users as well as military forces. China probably is developing jammers covering several satellite communications bands, including extremely high frequencies used by the U.S. military, the report said.
The PLA routinely incorporates satellite jamming and anti-jamming techniques into exercises, probably to practice disrupting communications, radar and GPS support to opposing forces. The agency also assessed that China probably intends to use cyberattacks to constrain an adversary’s actions or slow the mobilization and deployment of its forces.
The report found no indication that Beijing planned to test or develop a nuclear anti-satellite weapon for use in space, despite research by a Chinese scientist into its effects. Chinese leaders probably judge that such a weapon would damage the country’s economic interests and risk uncontrolled escalation, the DIA said.
The findings appear in the DIA’s “Challenges to Security in Space 2026: Congestion, Competition, and Cooperation”, which has an information cutoff of July 2026. The report examines China’s military space strategy, satellite networks and weapons development as part of a broader assessment of threats to U.S. and allied space capabilities.
