The congressional report released on October 19 addresses the threat China poses to US interest. The report was sent to Congress and showed why the DoD takes China as a rising threat and America’s top foreign priority. The DoD notes that China is quickly closing the gap the US once had in space technologies and is prioritizing the ability to deny enemies access to their own space communications, reconnaissance, and other space-based mission objectives. The list of anti-satellite weapons include ground based missiles, lasers, space robotics, and cyber-attacks that could jam or deny data to the ground or even hijack or disable satellites.

This is especially relevant to cyber security as tensions continue to grow with China. China has time and time again proved their willingness to attack US space assets. In a conflict, the United States would rely heavily on these space assets for communication, tracking enemy movement, and missile defense among many other capabilities. This can be seen is what would be considered a smaller conflict like the war in Ukraine. Congress will need to take these warnings seriously and invest in the cyber technology development and infrastructure to combat China’s growing space cyber sector.

Source: https://spacenews.com/in-annual-report-to-congress-pentagon-highlights-chinas-refusal-to-engage/