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Space Wars in the 21st Century

From the series Militarisation of space

The first shot of the next war between the world's big powers, it is often said, will be fired in space. As conflict spreads on Earth, ill omens are emerging in the firmament (The Economist, February 3rd, 2024). A year later, the commander of the US Space Force espoused the same position. In a Congressional testimony, General Bradley Chance Saltzman wrote: Because of space's strategic importance, it is highly likely that satellites will be some of the first casualties of any conflict between the US and China.

Early in his career, the general continued, space was considered a sanctuary. Satellites were few, extremely expensive, placed in remote orbits, and essentially untouchable by hostile activity. Today, General Saltzman stated, we are not alone in recognising the incredible strategic advantage offered by space, and we cannot take space superiority for granted.

There are over 10,000 satellites in orbit, of which 8,000 belong to SpaceX's Starlink constellation. They are positioned in low, medium, and geostationary orbits, and provide numerous services for both civilian and military purposes. Their limited manoeuvrability, however, makes them difficult to defend and easy targets for an adversary. At present, the best defence is redundancy, i.e., the capacity to replace them rapidly.

Internet, navigation, observation, communications

Starlink has a near-monopoly on satellite internet connectivity: this has enabled it to play a decisive role in the war in Ukraine, replacing the communications previously provided to the army by Viasat, whose ground equipment was hit by a Russian cyberattack.

Starlink's position was secured thanks to the cost-effectiveness of SpaceX's Falcon 9 launchers. Competitors still lag behind considerably, but could catch up gradually, especially once China develops reusable launchers. At the end of August, there were 650 satellites from OneWeb in orbit, controlled by the French Eutelsat, 102 from the American Kuiper by Amazon, 90 from China's Qianfan, and 72 from the competitor Guowang. The European Iris2 project could be launched in 2030.

Space is full of dual-use satellite constellations. One example is navigation, where the US system GPS, the European Galileo, the Russian GLONASS, and the Chinese BeiDou are present. Not only can they help us navigate safely with Google Maps, but also guide military vehicles, missiles, and smart bombs with the same precision.

Another example is Earth observation satellite constellations, such as Copernicus – which covers 41% of all global observation, the US private companies Planet Labs and Maxar, or the Finnish ICEYE. Primarily created for scientific or commercial purposes – such as studying climate trends, mineral resources, soil movements, and disaster damage – these systems could also allow the sale of the same images and data to militaries. Such activity accounts for 50% of the revenue of the Californian company Planet Labs.

Military expenditure

The Draghi Report (The Future of European Competitiveness), written for the European Commission, records a public expenditure in 2023 on space activities of $73 billion for the US, $14 billion for China, and $13 billion for the EU. By 2030 these figures are expected to rise to $80 billion, $20 billion, and $14 billion respectively. The military share of this expenditure is 60% in the US and 38% in China. The report does not provide an assessment of European military spending on satellites but focuses on the poorly-centralised control mechanism.

The European governance of the sector is characterised by the co-existence of multiple institutional actors at the national and European levels [...]. This governance is the result of historical and institutional developments during the past decades. In particular, the ESA – the leading European public institution in the field of space – operates based on the principle of ‘geographical return’. This means that investments are related to national funding shares, a mechanism that amplifies the fragmentation of the EU's space industrial base, something the agreement between Airbus, Thales, and Leonardo aims to address.

One outcome would also be a relative European military weakness. According to data from the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), purely military satellites are estimated to total 263 for the US, 267 for China, 101 for Russia, and 41 for European countries [The Military Balance 2025]. These infrastructures are directly under the command of recently-established specific military forces. In 2019 the US Space Force was created, alongside the French Commandement de l'espace (Space command). The following year saw the formation of the Italian Comando delle operazioni spaziali (Space operations command), followed by the space component of the Bundeswehr in Germany in 2021.

The German relaunch

In September, Boris Pistorius, Germany's minister of defence, spoke at the European Space Conference organised in Berlin by the Federation of German Industries (BDI). The government intends to invest €35 billion in space activities over the next five years, which is three times the current national expenditure and comparable to the ESA's annual budget of around €7.7 billion.

Berlin intends to protect ground infrastructure from cyberattacks, enhance the monitoring of space assets, create multiple and interconnected satellite constellations, develop cost-effective and on-demand launch systems, and establish a military operations centre. Among the assets to be developed, the minister added, there will be guardian satellites as well as offensive tools for deterrence.

Pistorius stated that Moscow and Beijing have rapidly developed their capabilities to conduct a war in space and that satellite networks are now the Achilles' heel of modern societies; attacking them can paralyse an entire country. The minister concluded by observing that at this very moment, 39 Chinese and Russian satellites are flying over us (Il Sole 24 Ore, September 26th).

China's strength

Le Figaro reports the opinion of Pierre Lionnet, director of research at Eurospace, the association of continental space industries: in his view, the major phenomenon of the last twenty years is the exponential growth of China, which has become the second, or in some areas the first, space power in the world. Its Long March family of launchers, designed by China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), has completed around 600 missions since 1970. Each year they put into orbit satellites and space objects weighing 100 tonnes, roughly equivalent to the level achieved by the United States.

China has advanced warning systems, which detect enemy ballistic missile launches, and the Shen-long (Divine Dragon), an unmanned space plane which has already completed three classified missions, the most recent lasting nine months. Beijing has the Beidou navigation system and the Tiangong space station, which regularly hosts taikonauts, the Dragon's astronauts. It has also begun deploying the Qianfan and Guowang satellite constellations mentioned above.

The China National Space Administration (CNSA), the national space agency of China, is working on landing some taikonauts on the Moon by 2030. The Long March 10, capable of transporting 27-ton payloads into transfer orbit, is under development; two of these rockets will carry the Mengzhou manned capsule and the Lanyue lunar landing module, which will dock with each other in lunar orbit.

SPACE LAUNCHES BY COUNTRY

2022 2023 2024
US 87 110 158
  SpaceX 61 96 134
  Rocket Lab 9 6 13
China 61 66 66
  privately owned 11 18 17
Russia 22 19 17
Europe 5 3 3
Japan 1 2 5
India 4 7 5
Iran 1 1 4
South Korea 1 2 -
Total 182 210 258

Sources: SpaceNews, IISS, ESA.

CASC is also designing the Long March 10A launcher, which will be used to supply materials to the Tiangong space station and will feature a recoverable and reusable first stage. This is the area where the US-China gap is greatest. Beijing opened space to private commercial companies in 2014; and over the past three and a half years, these companies have launched 52 rockets out of 228 missions, representing 23% of the total. These Chinese NewSpace companies are engaged in designing rockets with a recoverable first stage. The rockets shown in the Table will be launched between the end of the year and 2026. A prototype of the Zhuque-3 has passed a re-entry test from 10 km altitude, while the Hyperbola-3 prototype has survived a descent from a few hundred metres. If orbital launches are successful, they will be ten years behind SpaceX's first successful Falcon-9 recovery.

The ESA has also launched the European Launcher Challenge, which will fund affordable and reusable carriers and has selected five proposals; the first launches will take place over the next two years.

SpaceX and the Pentagon

Over the last three years SpaceX has carried out 45% of all space launches worldwide (see Table). In 2024, only 6% of the Falcon-9 rockets it launched had a new first stage; the cost-effectiveness of recovering the remaining 94% is evident. Most of SpaceX's missions have been aimed at placing satellites from the Starlink constellation into orbit. This year the group is expected to reach $15 billion in revenue. A large part of its profit will be used for the development of the large Starship spacecraft which, while its development timeline remains uncertain, is nonetheless expected to play an increasing role in the Artemis program for the return to the Moon and for missions to Mars.

The tasks assigned by the Pentagon are more in the nearer term. In 2026, the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), GPS III, and Wideband Global Satcom satellites will be launched; five missions are assigned to SpaceX and two missions to ULA (the Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture). Between 2027 and 2032, 54 missions will take place, 60% of which have been awarded to SpaceX, 35% to ULA, and 5% to Bezos's (Amazon) Blue Origin. According to press reports, the Pentagon will pay Elon Musk's company $170 million for each launch. The technological advantages are there, but space wars are costly.

PROJECTS FOR NEW LAUNCHERS

Company Headquarters Founded Launcher
Isar Aerospace Ottobrunn - Germany 2018 Spectrum
Rocket Factory - Augsburg Augsburg - Germany 2018 RFA One
Orbex Forres - United Kingdom 2015 Orbex Prime
MaiaSpace Vernon - France 2022 Maia
PLD Space Elche - Spain 2011 Miura
LandSpace Beijing 2015 Zhuque
Space Pioneer Beijing 2019 Tianlong
Galactic Energy Beijing 2018 Ceres and Pallas
i-Space Beijing 2016 Hyperbola

Note: companies selected by ESA's call European Launcher Challenge (top) and Chinese companies that have already conducted space launches; all are designing reusable rockets.

Sources: IISS, ESA, China Daily, company websites.

Lotta Comunista, October 2025

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