Get ready for China’s dual use space station

On April 29, 2021 China launched the first 22-ton Tianhe module of the China Space Station (CSS), with two more “experimental” modules to be launched by the end of 2022 to complete its first stage of construction.

It should be expected that like many systems produced by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA)-controlled Chinese space program, the CSS will perform “dual use” military and civil missions.

Most of China’s early Shenzhou manned spaceships carried either optical or electronic Earth surveillance equipment, and both Tiangong pre-CSS mini-space stations carried optical surveillance systems. The Shenzhou and Tiangong-based Tianzhou CSS supply ships could be equipped with surveillance and weapon systems to arm the CSS.

China’s previous behavior suggests that it views the 15-partner International Space Station (ISS) led by the United States and Russia to be similarly capable of military missions, at least sufficient to justify being viewed as a military target.

For example, while China’s first spacewalk dominated global press coverage of its September 25-28, 2008 Shenzhou-7 spaceship mission, less noticed was that China used this mission to practice a “dual use” military interception of the ISS.

The press office of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), after consulting the United States Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM), confirmed to this analyst that on September 27, 2008, Shenzhou-7 has passed within about 45 kilometers of the ISS.

This was a risky distance considering that both craft were moving over 17,000 miles per hour.  China failed to notify either the U.S. or Russia that it was planning such a close pass. There were two Russians and one American aboard the ISS at the time.

Clearly this maneuver had been planned months or years in advance.  It took weeks for China to deploy one of its large space tracking and control ships to an area between Australia and New Zealand, so it could monitor the “interception” taking place overhead.

However, this was not the most threatening aspect of the Chinese maneuver.  Just before passing by the ISS, Shenzhou-7 launched the 40-kilogram, thruster-equipped BX-1 microsatellite.  Was this just an early demonstration of Chinese microsatellite technology, or was it a “dual use” simulated “missile” that could have been maneuvered to hit the ISS?

Since this event, neither U.S., Russian nor Chinese space officials have addressed the implications of China’s threatening September 2008 maneuver against the ISS.  Perhaps this is why China conducted a recent “reminder” of the 2008 incident.

In his twitter feed on May 10, 2021, Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, noted that on April 29, about six minutes after China’s Tianhe space station module separated from the Long March-5 booster, it passed within 300km directly under the International Space Station (ISS).

Again, like the 2008 incident, this maneuver did not happen by “chance” and had to be planned well in advance.  But it also means that the CSS’s orbit may allow it to regularly pass within a tactically useful distance of the ISS.

Washington and its ISS partners could decide to ignore this second indication that China may view the ISS has a “hostile” space platform.  But they should also consider the indications that China may be following the example of the former Soviet Union in making its large CSS capable of military missions.

The Soviets had their Almaz series of small military space stations that carried a 23mm gun for defense against possible U.S. attack, but in an April 2021 television show, Russia revealed that it had designed a 100km range interceptor missile for the Almaz. 

In addition, the 1996 official history of the Soviet/Russian Energia company that built the Soviet MIR space station, revealed that had the Soviet Union survived into the 1990s, MIR could have been modified to host Earth-bombing spaceships.

A key indicator that China may be influenced by Soviet-era military space station concepts is that the China Space Station is based on the Energia space station concept of assembling many mission-oriented modules in space.

In 2009 Russian space officials denied to this analyst there had been a sale of Russian space station technology to China, even as there were emerging similarities between the Chinese and Russian space station designs.  Though slightly larger at 22 tons, the Chinese Tianhe module is a modified copy of the 20-ton Russian Energia DOS-7 module used by MIR. 

In the early 1990s Russian did sell Soyuz spaceship technology that China modified into its slightly larger but essentially similar Shenzhou manned spaceship.

Russian sources interviewed in 2009 convinced this analyst that China very likely stole Russian space station designs and/or technology when the Russians agreed to host a large number of paying Chinese engineers called “interns” at Russian space companies in the late 1990s.

By following the Energia-MIR design concept, the CSS could quickly become a combat-capable space station with the quick replacement of “civil” mission modules with military mission modules.

Doing this may become easier for China to conceal with two known future developments for the CSS.  First, the initial three main-module 60-ton space station could double in weight with the addition of a second set of three main modules.  Whereas the first two “experimental” modules of the CSS also carry its main large solar energy arrays, the second two experimental modules do not.

This means that the second two experimental modules could be rapidly exchanged for modules equipped for surveillance or active military missions.  They could be equipped with optical radar, or electronic intelligence surveillance systems, or they could carry missile or laser weapons.

The PLA may desire an armed CSS, especially with laser weapons, to more effectively counter U.S. and European mega satellite constellations of 10,000 satellites or more.  For example, the planned 12,000 satellite SpaceX Starlink global internet system could provide Western military services with communications capabilities that compliment more vulnerable military satellite and ground-based communications links.

Or the PLA may decide that an armed CSS in Low Earth Orbit may also be useful for finding and neutralizing micro/cubesat sized surveillance satellites, an option for near-term Chinese military targets like Taiwan.

A second future development will be the planned 2025 launch of the China Space Station Telescope, with a mirror larger than that used by the U.S. Hubble Space Telescope, to conduct the same kind of research of distant stars and galaxies.

The telescope will be positioned in an orbit to follow the CSS, and can even dock with it for maintenance or “modifications.”  Chinese briefings indicate the telescope initially will have some space for additional equipment.

China also could simply devise an excuse for replacing the telescope without disclosing that a new one is instead a military space surveillance and/or combat platform.

It is interesting that with the advent of the Chinese Space Station, Russia is indicating that it is ready to depart from the ISS and, if funding allows, build its own smaller space station.  Perhaps the Russians understand, given the technology origins of the CSS, that they now require a space station capable of defense and offense.

For the United States, the potential for an armed Chinese Space Station raises a number of challenges, starting with how to equip the ISS and future Western space stations with effective survival systems for their crew.

An armed CSS would also more quickly challenge the decades of political and legal conventions supporting the peaceful uses of outer space.  At a minimum it would challenge the U.S. Space Force to have the ability to conduct continuous all-aspect observation of the CSS.

The more ominous implication would be that the era of the peaceful use of outer space has transitioned into a new era requiring deterrent capabilities.  To deter Chinese offensive military actions, or those of a possible China-Russia coalition, in Low Earth Orbit or on the Moon, it may be necessary for the United States to now have the “dual use” systems capable of an immediate response.

Richard D. Fisher, Jr. is a senior fellow with the International Assessment and Strategy Center