Washington: US “near peer” adversaries are “practicing dogfighting” in space to simulate orbital combat in yet another step up their wide-ranging effort to develop capabilities to deny, disrupt, degrade and/or destroy US space capabilities, the Space Force’s second in command warned.
General Michael Guetlein, vice chief of space operations, told the McAleese annual Defence Programs Conference that commercial partners had provided space situational awareness data to the Space Force on a demonstration involving coordinated moves of five different satellites.
“There are five different objects in space manoeuvring in and out around each other, in synchronicity and in control. That’s what we call dogfighting in space. They are practicing tactics, techniques and procedures to do on-orbit space operations from one satellite to another,” he explained.
And while Guetlein did not specify which countries five satellites were involved, a Space Force spokesperson later told reporters that the demonstration was Chinese.
“Gen Guetlein referenced Chinese satellite maneuvers observed in space. China conducted a series of proximity operations in 2024 involving three Shiyan-24C experimental satellites and two Chinese experimental space objects, the Shijian-6 05A/B. These maneuvers were observed in low Earth orbit. These observations are based on commercially available information,” the spokesperson said.
A representative of Colorado-based space tracking firm LeoLabs confirmed that the company had observed the Chinese demonstration of what are known in the space community as rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO) using its network of ground-based radar — as well as another, ongoing case involving Russian satellites.
“The Russians are right in the middle of a three-spacecraft RPO,” the LeoLabs rep added.
Both countries in the past have demonstrated RPO ability with two spacecraft moving closely around each other in LEO, raising Defence Department concerns. US officials have said that China further has been using several satellites to stalk US government and commercial satellites stationed in geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO).
