Andrew S. Erickson

Craig Covault, “China’s Military Space Surge,” Aerospace America (March 2011): 32-37.

Expert analysts say China is accelerating its military space program to target U.S. aircraft carriers. The surge in development and launch activities has caught the attention of the U.S. secretary of defense and has begun to affect DOD planning. Yet very little U.S. or political and media attention has focused on this trend, which some are calling “a new space race with only one participant.”

China’s surging military space program is poised to challenge U.S. aircraft carrier operations in the Pacific, as Chinese military spacecraft already gather significant new radar, electrooptical imaging, and signal intelligence data globally.

During 2010, China more than doubled its military satellite launch rate to 12. This compares with three to five military missions launched each year between 2006 and 2009. Since 2006, China has launched about 30 military related spacecraft. Its total of 15 launches in 2010 set a new record for China and for the first time equaled the U.S. flight rate for a given year. …

“This is a really big deal. These military spacecraft are being launched at a very rapid pace” says Andrew S. Erickson, a Naval War College expert on China’s naval and space forces. China is becoming a military space power within a global context.” …

Detailed analyses of China’s military space program have been done by Erickson at Harvard University, where he is completing a book entitled Great Power Aerospace Development, China’s Quest for the Highest High Ground.

Grandson of the late Joe Gavin, who led Apollo lunar module development at Grumman, Erickson has also written for the U.S. Naval Institute at Annapolis, where his piece “Eyes in the Sky” in the institute’s Proceedings lays out a detailed picture of China’s growing military space program. Work from Erickson’s research is included in this analysis, as are his findings from another major research project on Chinese military small satellites and microsats.

“An emerging network of space-based sensors promises to radically improve the targeting capabilities of China’s Navy and other services,” says Erickson. This is also giving the country a major new capability to image and eavesdrop on U.S. aircraft and ships basing at key Pacific locations like Guam and Japan. …

“China’s military space program is moving at a rapid pace and has to be taken very seriously,” says Erickson. …

Thirteen Yaogan satellites launched since 2006 are engaged in military space activity, and most remain operational, says Erickson. Only Yaogan 1 has expired. This first Chinese imaging radar satellite appears to have exploded in orbit in February 2010 after four years of service. Four digital imaging Yaogans and four imaging radar satellites have been launched.

“This is the most rapid launch sequence of anything I have yet seen. It is particularly significant because [although they clearly have military missions] they are officially billed as satellites for civilian applications like crop monitoring.” …

China appears to have very advanced capabilities in both electrooptical and radar imaging, with very high resolution,” Erickson points out. “These seem to be exactly the type of capabilities for which to further develop space-based information, surveillance and reconnaissance to support precision weapons.” … Erickson says that, as a whole, China has about 15 reconnaissance-relevant imaging spacecraft, spread between the Yaogans, CBERS, and numerous small satellites. In fact, China has launched some 40 small satellites (weighing 500 kg or less) to date, he says. …

In addition to intelligence and targeting formations, China is also moving aggressively with ocean monitoring satellites that provide militarily important coastal and sea condition data.

Among the spacecraft planned are 15 additional Haiyang satellites, in three sets, over the next decade. … Erickson says a total of eight satellites, designated HY-1C-J, will be launched every three years, in pairs, between 2010 and 2019. The HY-2 series will then introduce a Ku/C dual-frequency radar altimeter, a tri-frequency radiometer, a Ku-band scan radar scatterometer, and a microwave imager to monitor sea surface wave field, height, and temperature. …

…an analysis published by Taiwan’s navy says the Haiyang satellites are part of an “ocean monitoring system that has strengthened the PRC military’s knowledge of a potential Pacific Ocean battlefield.”…

… Erickson has also conducted a detailed study of Chinese military small sats and microsats, both of which may aid China’s intelligence gathering.

“What is especially intriguing is that by employing diverse small satellite designs based on common buses, or standardized platforms, China may not need to develop superior heavy spacecraft technologies, but end up with military space capabilities greater than the sum of its parts,” Erickson says. “That may suit their purposes quite effectively, although quite differently from the U.S. military space program, which uses larger individual spacecraft.”

China may have discovered very sweet ‘knees on the curve’ (points of maximum benefit) in terms of capability versus cost. Looking forward, if they are able to continue to develop and succeed with reasonably priced satellites updated with the latest off-the-shelf technologies, they may have a potent modular, affordable, adaptable, and replenishable military satellite nucleus the U.S. will not have, Erickson says.

“With this strategy, China may be able to come up with something that is increasingly more than the sum of its parts,” Erickson says. He points out that Chinese specialists almost uniformly view microsatellite technology as essential for 21st century military development.

In the assessment of one major Chinese aerospace journal, “The successful development of reconnaissance, monitoring, surveying and mapping, communications, and other satellite systems can provide comprehensive, accurate and timely strategic and tactical information for high technology warfare.” Another argues that “microsatellites will play an indispensable role in future information warfare,” which reflects a view widespread in China’s defense industrial sector. Having recognized that “space control provides the key to military victories in modern warfare, Chinese defense analysts are focusing on developing improved methods for entering space, using space, and controlling space.”

They already credit indigenously developed satellites for substantially improving the nation’s military communications. Erickson points out that “Chinese researchers are studying not only how to attack other nations’ satellites, but also how to defend their own.” He says a detailed study of satellite defense methods by researchers at the Shijiazuang School of Ordnance Engineering predicts that, “As microsatellite technology advances, small high-energy lasers or high-power microwave systems may be incorporated for self-defense or satellite protection.” …

In satellite navigation, China’s 2007-era Beidou 1 four-satellite constellation has its capability limited by its latitude and longitude area of service. To improve on that, China is deploying a 35-satellite Beidou 2/compass navigation satellite system that will have five spacecraft in geosynchronous orbit and 30 medium-altitude spacecraft. It should achieve global coverage capability in 2015-2020, Erickson predicts. …