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US must be able to ‘turn around and punch’ in space as China boosts satellites: general

Head of US Space Force Combat Forces Command also highlights spaceplanes as area of increasing competition with China

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US Lieutenant General Gregory Gagnon says more than 500 of China’s satellites “are purposely designed and networked to track mobile forces such as US carriers, destroyers and cruisers in the Pacific, as well as aircraft that deploy around the Pacific”. Photo: Xinhua
Seong Hyeon Choi
The United States needs to go on the offensive in space to be able to “turn around and punch” back at China’s rapidly expanding surveillance satellite network, according to a US Space Force general.

According to the US military news website The War Zone, Lieutenant General Gregory Gagnon said China had built “the second-best remote sensing architecture in the world from outer space”.

He said China had expanded from fewer than 100 satellites in 2013, when Chinese President Xi Jinping first came to power, to 1,900 today.

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“Over 500 of those satellites are remote sensing satellites, which are purposely designed and networked to track mobile forces such as US carriers, destroyers and cruisers in the Pacific, as well as aircraft that deploy around the Pacific,” Gagnon said during a round table on the sidelines of the Air & Space Forces Association warfare symposium on Wednesday.

“Those have been built with a purpose. The purpose is to cue their long-range fire weapons.”

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