China Suspected of Developing Methods to Attack Satellites, According to Pentagon Leaks

Recently leaked Pentagon documents suggest that China is developing sophisticated cyber attacks to disrupt military communication satellites. While this is unconfirmed, it is certainly possible, as many sovereign nations and private companies have considered how to protect from signal interference. The Chinese space programme has been advancing at a faster rate than that of any other country. China’s first successful launch was in 1970, but in 1999 its space programme leapt forward with the Shenzhou-1 launch which was the first in a series of unmanned, then manned, space missions of increasing sophistication. The leaked document suggests that the Chinese are looking for the capability to “seize control of a satellite, rendering it ineffective to support communications, weapons, or intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance systems”. Satellites orbit our planet at a range of altitudes. The lowest stable orbits are around 300km, the International Space Station and the Hubble Space Telescope sit at 500km altitude, and geostationary satellites are around 36,000km up (about six times the radius of the Earth).