China now has a ‘kill mesh’ in orbit, Space Force vice chief says

The United States is approaching a turning point in space security, and needs to step up its game before Russia and China close the gap in capabilities, a U.S. Space Force general said.

Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. Michael Guetlein spoke at the 16th annual McAleese “Defense Programs” Conference in Arlington, Virginia on Tuesday (March 18), warning the Space Force needs to rethink how it defends the country’s satellites. Space Force should shift its focus from managing spacecraft in support of defense infrastructure on the ground, to growing its ability to keep pace with the on-orbit weaponry being developed by the country’s adversaries, Guetlein argued.

“We are in the process of pivoting from what used to be a service focused on providing the most exquisite space services on the planet to the warfighter and to the nation” Gen. Guetlein said, “to make it a warfighting force capable of protecting and defending our capabilities in and through space.”

For decades, spacefaring nations largely avoided interfering with each other’s satellites and other spacecraft, but now that era seems to be coming to an end. The shift comes as China and Russia have ramped up displays of orbital warfare capabilities over the past few years. Some of these incidents have more publicly-facing than others, such as Russia’s anti-satellite (ASAT) test in 2022, which created a cloud of supersonic debris in low-Earth orbit. That same year, a Chinese satellite “grappled” one of the nation’s defunct satellites and towed it into a “graveyard orbit.”

“We’re seeing grappling arms in space capable of towing another satellite or holding it hostage,” he warned. “We’re also now starting to see our near peers focusing on practicing dogfighting in space with satellites,” he added, stressing that propping up the Space Force would deter such aggression.

Guetlein says the old norms in space are beginning to erode. “There was a gentleman’s agreement until recent [sic] that we didn’t mess with each other’s space systems,” Guetlein said. “We didn’t jam them, we didn’t spoof them, we didn’t lase them, we just kept them safe,” he explained. “Unfortunately, our current adversaries are willing to go against international norms of behavior […] and they’re willing to do it in very unsafe and unprofessional manners.”

Guetlein also noted the “jamming, spoofing, and dazzling” trend becoming norms of behavior, highlighting the tactics as a rapid addition to the new operational environment in space. Now, the stakes are rising higher. Foreign satellites have begun shadowing US spacecraft, moving in lockstep in what Guetlein described as a “cat and mouse game.”

The Space Force general added that as new orbital warfare technologies and capabilities emerge, it’s important that the US maintain superiority. But the once-massive technological advantage in space held by the U.S. is narrowing. “That capability gap used to be massive,” Guetlein noted. “That capability gap is significantly narrowed, and we’ve got to change the way we’re looking at space, or that capability gap may reverse and not be in our favor anymore.”

China, in particular, is advancing its intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) technologies. “The Chinese ISR capabilities are becoming very capable. They have gone from what we used to call a ‘Kill Chain’ to a ‘Kill Mesh’,” he said, describing an integrated network that intertwines ISR satellites with weapon systems.

To combat the adversarial overtake, the Space Force has begun reinforcing its infrastructure and adding redundancies where it can, but Gen. Guetlein says more needs to be done. In some areas, he pointed out, the commercial space sector has surpassed some of what the Space Force is able to accomplish from orbit. He says commercial and international partnerships are absolutely crucial.

“We no longer have the corner on technology. Commercial has it, as well as our allies. All of us operating together are better than the sum of the parts,” Guetlein said. “Partnerships get us proliferation, that gets us excess capacity, that gets us redundancy, that makes the attack surface much broader for our adversaries.”

Space Force is also developing integrated defense systems, including an initiative called Golden Dome, proposed during President Trump’s first address to Congress during his new term in office. “The magic of Golden Dome, in my mind, is going to be the integration of capabilities that were never meant to be networked or integrated before,” Gen. Guetlein said. “Many pieces of the puzzle for Golden Dome already exist. They’re just not connected today.”