Pentagon and Beijing Are Both Preparing Weapons for Orbital Combat, Reuters Review Shows

The next war with China may open hundreds of miles above the Pacific before a single ship moves. A Reuters review of documents, space-tracking data and interviews with current and former military officials, carried this week by outlets including Asia Times, AsiaOne, TBS News and idnfinancials, illustrates the scale of the orbital arms race.

In June, a secretive unmanned Chinese spaceplane released a small satellite in a crowded orbital region, according to U.S. space-tracking firm LeoLabs. The object looped around another Chinese satellite before returning to the spaceplane. Little is publicly known about the mission. The U.S. operates its own unmanned, shuttle-like spaceplane for similar classified purposes.

Reuters reviewed patent filings, procurement notices and academic papers tied to Chinese military researchers and found active development of satellites designed to pursue, and even capture, other spacecraft, plus systems to extend fuel supplies for those hunter satellites so they can keep operating indefinitely.

Officials Say the Threat Is Accelerating

General Chance Saltzman, the U.S. Space Force's Chief of Space Operations, told Reuters in July that "the Chinese are rapidly developing capabilities," including ground- and space-based weapons meant to interfere with or destroy satellites. He called the threat from China "substantial."

General Stephen Whiting, head of U.S. Space Command, has gone further, according to the Daily Wire. Whiting said China has "accelerated their terrestrial and on-orbit space weapons, expanded their space-enabled kill chains and are moving at breathtaking speed. In fact, I now say they're moving at jaw-dropping speed." In 2024 remarks Whiting also flagged Chinese fractional orbital bomb systems and a newly tested Russian missile system, warning that "we must be well-prepared for conflict in space," and that "if deterrence fails, we will fight and win."

Everett Dolman, a former professor at the U.S. Air Force's Air War College, told Reuters that disruption of U.S. space capabilities would "cripple our massive military in the terrestrial sphere," hitting everything from surveillance to missile defense. Satellites aren't passive infrastructure anymore. They're weapons platforms.

In September 2025, U.S. and U.K. space forces conducted their first joint orbital operation, maneuvering near China's Shiyan 12-01 satellite, according to Asia Times, in what analysts described as a deterrence signal. The U.S. is also fielding ground-based jamming systems and pushing for orbital interceptors, a concept that overlaps with President Trump's Golden Dome missile defense program, which envisions space-based interceptors as part of its architecture.

A July 2026 Council on Geostrategy report by Gabriel Elefteri draws a useful distinction, per Asia Times: "orbital warfare" means spacecraft-on-spacecraft combat, maneuver and harassment entirely within orbit, separate from broader "space warfare" that includes ground-launched anti-satellite missiles or orbital strikes on terrestrial targets. The in-orbit maneuvering, not missile strikes, is escalating fastest right now.

China maintains its spaceplane and satellite programs serve peaceful civilian survey purposes, and Beijing accuses Washington of militarizing orbit first. That's a real dispute, not a settled fact, and Reuters' reporting does not resolve which side is escalating the underlying arms race versus responding to the other.

The Ground Game: New Mexico

While the orbital contest plays out overhead, CNN reported a separate incident showing China's intelligence apparatus also probing American territory directly. In fall 2024 and again in spring 2025, a quadcopter drone was tracked flying reconnaissance patterns over White Sands Missile Range, a sensitive Army testing facility in New Mexico. The first time, Customs and Border Protection agents chased it roughly 35 miles until it crossed into Mexican airspace and they had to turn back.

The second time, in spring 2025, a task force pulling in the Army, FBI, Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon's UFO-tracking office studied the drone for roughly five days before using electronic warfare tools to force it down in a parking lot on base.

At the same time, officials were watching a group of Chinese nationals who had flown into New York, rented a Mercedes RV, driven to Las Vegas to pick up a third person, then headed to White Sands, according to CNN's sources. A separate Chinese woman arrived by cruise ship in Texas, rented a car, drove to White Sands National Park nearby, and stayed past closing. Identifying information tied to her was later found in the RV, one source told CNN, convincing officials the two groups were connected. The FBI told military and CBP officials the individuals were believed to have ties to Chinese intelligence.

The RV group was detained by military personnel and turned over to federal authorities. The woman in the park was ticketed and released by the Department of the Interior. CNN reported it could not learn what happened to any of them afterward, and the Army did not respond to a request for comment before CNN's publication, while the FBI and CBP declined to comment.

No criminal charges tied to the White Sands incident have been publicly announced. Whether the detained individuals were ever charged, deported, or released remains unknown, and no agency has said on the record what became of them. That gap, alongside the accelerating orbital buildup both nations are pursuing, leaves the practical question unanswered: is Washington actually equipped to detect and deter this kind of dual reconnaissance, from a rented RV on the ground to a spaceplane in orbit, before a crisis over Taiwan forces the issue?