China or the US: Who is winning the new space race? | Mapped Out

Global superpowers are competing for dominance in space. They are launching more rockets than ever. Bringing a whole lot more satellites up there.

It’s getting busy. And they are building mysterious spaceships. Space has always been a contested arena.

But what we are seeing right now brings it to another level. We're in a new space age. The United States is still the most powerful country up there.

Partly thanks to this man. But I do think it's more interesting what's happening in sort of second and third place. And China has overtaken Russia for 2nd place.

So, it’s worth looking up. Because what's happening up there impacts what's happening down here. And if something goes wrong in space it could completely disrupt things on Earth.

Hollywood loves a doomsday scenario, like when all satellite navigation fails. It’s over the top – but actually not by much. We all massively depend on satellites.

The human-made machines that orbit our planet. Have you used a navigation app today? Definitely satellites.

Checked the weather? Absolutely satellites. Transfered money?

Could be satellites. Or searched for something on the internet? Odds are.

. . satellites.

But that’s just the obvious stuff. Satellites track earthquakes, forest fires or flooding. They help understand climate change.

And they are essential to military operations. As we’ll see in a bit. And this is one of the places where satellites are launched into space.

This is Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Similar launch sites exist all over the world. Up to 50 new satellites are put into space every week.

This animation shows how it works up there. Fascinating right? Most satellites are in lower orbit around Earth, some further away.

Right now, there are more than 10,000 active satellites in space. Look at all those dots. The red ones are satellites.

And the US has the most. More than 8,000 including many commercial ones. China operates more than 700 satellites and Russia has a little over 200.

And it will only get busier up there. By 2030 there could be 60,000 satellites in space. And sometimes they can determine the outcome of a war.

On February 24, 2022 Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. That is well-known. But there is a more obscure story that is not as well-known from the early hours of that same day.

Across Europe communication with thousands of wind turbines broke down. They were still operating but for quite some time it was not possible to control them remotely. What had happened?

This satellite, KA-SAT, got hit by a cyberattack. The US and EU accused Russia of being behind it. KA-SAT provides broadband internet.

Not only for wind turbines but also – and this is much more important for our story - for Ukraine and its military. Cyberexperts think Russia wanted to disrupt communication of Ukrainian forces to blindside them before invading. Timing is everything.

It has taught us to conduct a counter space attack, counter space measure you don't need to be in space. Right. It can be a hack.

It can be a cyberattack. This is Juliana Suess. She is a Research Fellow on Space Security at the Royal United Services Institute, an independent think tank in London.

You don't need to be a sophisticated space power to actually disrupt space systems. Ukraine regained Internet connection at least partially with the help of Starlink. The satellite communications company owned by Elon Musk.

We’ll get to him a bit later. So, we’ve just learned about cyberattacks. They target the data itself that is being transmitted by a satellite and the systems that control the data flow.

But there are more ways to disrupt space operations. Most involve interfering with the radio signals coming to and from satellites, specifically those used by navigation satellites like GPS, the Global Positioning System: this is a challenge for example for aircraft. It’s called spoofing when the attackers send a powerful false signal, overwhelming the original one.

The airplane’s navigation system can then show the wrong location. Then there is jamming: interrupting the signal. That means the airplane no longer has navigation data.

These are all methods and sort of attacks and countermeasures that we're currently seeing being deployed in Ukraine as well. Spoofing, jamming and cyberattacks are very common. Why?

Because they are relatively cheap and difficult to track. Russia jams a lot of different space systems jeopardizing things like civilian commercial air traffic. We know also that the US is quite advanced in its jamming and spoofing sort of capabilities.

And then there is this: watch the moment a Russian anti-satellite weapon destroys an obsolete Soviet satellite, Cosmos 1408. This was just a test. And a demonstration of Russian capability.

But it's still dangerous. The debris from such an attack can damage or even destroy other satellites in space. This animation shows how that could play out.

It does not look good. Astronauts from the International Space Station had to take shelter because of the dangerous debris from the Russian test. They got a warning message waking them up that morning: So, Russia has shown it can destroy another country’s satellite – by destroying their own.

And so have India, China and the United States. But: We have seen no one has physically destroyed somebody else's satellite deliberately. Dean Cheng has extensively covered the Chinese space program and is now working with the United States Institute of Peace.

Inevitably in space, you will start seeing each side trying to disrupt and interfere with the other side's ability to use space. So now we know some of the attacks taking place. Let’s have a look at the most important players up there.

And who could win the new space race. The history of space exploration started with a bitter setback for the United States. And a triumph for its Cold War rival, the Soviet Union.

On October 4, 1957, the Soviets launched the first ever satellite "Sputnik I " into space. Shortly after, the Soviets even sent a dog up there. Laika.

The first living creature to be launched into Earth orbit. In 1958, the US caught up with its own successful launches. The first space race was off and running.

The wild blue yonder had become yet another realm for the superpowers to compete. There's a lot more to say but we need to fast forward a few decades: Let’s turn now to rising anxieties over a new arms race in space. The US is again investing heavily in its space capabilities.

No other country has more satellites in orbit. More than 8,000. As we mentioned.

But did you know that more than 6,000 of those belong to Space X? A company founded by the richest man on Earth, Elon Musk. So, the US has the most successful commercial space player in its ranks.

Musk’s satellites provide internet broadband through Starlink. That’s the part of SpaceX that operates the satellites. They can cover even the most remote corners of the planet— such as deep in the Amazon rainforest.

That does not come without criticism. US Lawmakers are worried how much the US military is relying on a moody billionaire. But, yes, that is a different story.

Space is so important to the US, that in 2019, they created a new branch of the US military to deal with it, the United States Space Force. To be precise, Donald Trump did when he was president. His vice president made it pretty clear why the US thinks it needs to strengthen its presence in space.

The United States faces emerging threats in space from countries like China and Russia, and those threats are only growing. So, the message is obvious: up there is where the US thinks it can’t afford to fall behind. In 2024, Space Force had a budget of 29 billion US dollars.

NASA, the US civilian space agency got another 25 billion. Space Force uses those billions for new subordinate commands, like for Europe and Africa in Ramstein, Germany. This is the new commander Brigadier General Jacob Middleton taking over.

Our adversaries recognize the importance of space. That’s what makes space a contested environment. We see the US still as the predominant space power, but I do think it's more interesting what's happening in sort of second and third place.

Russia is falling behind in space – despite all the headlines. Sanctions, corruption and its aging infrastructure have left the space pioneer in the slow lane. Russia, which is obviously the first space power that we saw with the launch of Sputnik back in 1957 have had to cede its 2nd place to China, which has been rapidly building up its space capabilities over the last couple of years.

And China has big plans. It’s an up-and-coming power - on earth and in space. China has launched an unprecedented mission to the far side of the moon.

And they brought back lunar rocks from there. Nobody did that before. The People’s Republic is eager to show off its capabilities.

But this isn't all China has planned in space. It aims to become the leading global space power by 2045. The universe is the limit.

And China is building the infrastructure. Like this launch site in the country’s north. Recently 18 rockets with satellites were launched here.

They are part of a planned mega-constellation of 14,000 satellites, rivalling Elon Musk’s Starlink. I think we are in a new space race. Arguably we're in a new space age The US and China are in a strategic competition that is becoming ever more adversarial.

NASA chief Bill Nelson puts it this way, China has made extraordinary strides especially in the last 10 years but they are very, very secretive. We believe that a lot of their so-called civilian space program is a military program. And I think in effect we are in a race.

Look at what happened in Taiwan, just days before their election in January 2024. Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu was giving a press conference when an emergency alert for the island sounded. China gave no warning of the launch.

And the Taiwanese government said a rocket flying over its territory was a reminder of the danger of war with China. Remember, China has long claimed Taiwan as its territory. If you want more on that story, check out our episode on The Taiwan Standoff.

But what can we learn from this for our story? The Chinese provide very little hard information. For example, we do not know something as simple as how much does China spend on space?

I think there's certainly a sort of non-transparency aspect to it. The US and other western countries say exactly that. That China lacks transparency on its activities.

And is acting irresponsibly. Here’s another example. China launched satellites which are allegedly equipped with a net and a robotic arm.

They say it is to clear debris. There are no pictures of it. Too hush-hush!

But this animation shows what the robotic arm might look like. But what is it for? One incident from 2022 could provide clues.

That’s when China used the technology in ways not previously seen. A Chinese satellite was observed grabbing another old Chinese satellite and pulling it out of its normal orbit. That left US experts worried.

Was it testing a new offensive capability to be used against other countries? They know that in doing this, they are also sending a signal to the West, to Japan, to any country that operates space systems. We could really interfere with your space systems if we chose to.

China repeatedly says it wants to use space peacefully. Space is a shared asset of humanity. We are committed to peaceful utilization of space and stand ready to work with all countries with the same commitment to strengthen exchanges, deepen cooperation and contribute to lasting peace and common security in space.

Something critics doubt, especially because the civilian and military usage seems so intertwined. The heads of key parts of the Chinese space program are military. So, yes, if you work with China in space, you are working with the People's Liberation Army, you are working with the Chinese military.

China on the other hand has accused the US of militarizing space. In 2022, a US surveillance satellite approached two Chinese satellites. The incident raised concerns in China.

Will China catch up or even surpass the US? To answer this question we have to finally turn to the mysterious spaceships. We mentioned them at the very beginning.

Here’s what the US mysterious spaceship looks like. It’s called X37B, it's reusable and unmanned. Since 2010 it has been going on highly classified missions to orbit.

Where it allegedly carries out experiments. China has now succeeded in building a similar spacecraft. Shenlong.

China has never released pictures of it. The Chinese space plane almost certainly was developed in response to the X37B. So, why are these spaceplanes so important?

Both countries see the others’ mysterious spaceships as a potential threat. The secrecy around X37B and Shenlong has even led to speculation they could be used as weapon platforms. So who will win the new space race?

The US or China? Well first off, this space race is a marathon. The Chinese are in some ways very much a peer to the United States and arguably even ahead of the West.

The US is still in the lead, but China definitely has the aim also to be a predominant space power by 2045. So, what’s next? More competition or is there another way?

So space is only going to matter more. It's going to become busier and more congested space. And it's going to be more contested as well as we see more actors sort of entering space as well.

There's more need for rules than ever. Space is a domain like Antartica and the high seas. It belongs to no country.

So far, there are not many rules in place. The only real one is the Outer Space Treaty of 1967. More than 100 countries have signed it, including the US, China and Russia.

But the treaty is old and only loosely regulates activities in space. It bans nuclear weapons up there. But has nothing on anti-satellite weapons, for example.

No one wants to really give up any freedom of maneuver. I don't think we're really going to see any real progress on this in the next couple of years. What happens in space is a reflection of what happens on Earth.

So, competition it is. With networks of satellites and the weapons to destroy them. As long as China and the US are rivals on Earth, space is just another arena.