Summary:

The United States Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) released the third edition of its Challenges to Security in Space report on 26 October 2026. The report assesses that China, Russia, Iran and North Korea are developing, testing, deploying and using space capabilities in a way that threatens the security of all space systems. DIA singles out China and Russia as developing “a formidable spectrum of offensive capabilities” to degrade or destroy other countries’ space services.

China has more than tripled its annual space launches in a decade, to a record 93 in 2025. Its fleet of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) satellites exceeded 510 in July 2026, and DIA assesses that data from its nominally commercial satellites can support military use. China fields ground-based missiles and lasers that can strike satellites, and is testing satellites that can approach and grapple others. 

DIA reports that Russia is developing a satellite designed to carry a nuclear weapon, despite its obligations under the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. Its war in Ukraine has also made commercial satellites targets: Russian forces have jammed the commercial networks supporting Ukraine, and Moscow has designated them legitimate military targets.

Iran and North Korea, which the report classes as emerging space powers, have smaller programmes. DIA reports that Iran and the United States attacked each other’s space capabilities during their 2026 conflict. North Korea has used its space launches to test ballistic missile technology, and DIA assesses that its missiles may be able to strike satellites in a conflict.

DIA expects crowding in orbit to complicate operations in space alongside these weapons. More than 35,000 objects of at least 10 centimetres are now tracked in orbit, and planned constellations will probably triple the spacecraft population in low Earth orbit (LEO) by 2030. The report expects the risk of collision there to rise until at least 2040.

 

Detailed Report

 

1. DIA Report Finds Four Rival Powers Threaten the Security of Space

The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the US military’s foreign intelligence agency, released the third edition of Challenges to Security in Space: Congestion, Competition, and Cooperation on 26 October 2026. The report assesses the space and counterspace programmes of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.

The report’s central assessment is that all four countries are developing, testing, deploying and using space capabilities in a way that threatens the security of all space systems. DIA singles out China and Russia as developing “a formidable spectrum of offensive capabilities to degrade or destroy space services of other countries, from kinetic destruction to sophisticated jamming and cyber operations.”

The report sets that conduct against the two countries’ diplomacy:

“China and Russia have proposed unverifiable international space treaties and commitments such as ‘no first placement of weapons in outer space.’ Yet each refuses to acknowledge their ongoing efforts to develop dual-use and counterspace weaponry and their dangerous or ambiguous behavior on-orbit.”

The report finds that commercialisation has widened who can use space. Cheaper, smaller satellites and widely available launch services are bringing commercial systems rapidly into national security use. Services once provided only by governments are now available to anyone with sufficient means, “including state and non-state actors with malign interests.” Commercial and civil satellites that connect to military capabilities can, in turn, be held at risk.

Most of the expansion is in low Earth orbit (LEO), the band up to 2,000 kilometres above the surface. It held 15,058 satellites as of June 2026, a surge DIA attributes to large communications constellations and some large intelligence constellations. Higher orbits hold far fewer satellites, and their use is declining as older satellites reach the end of their lives. The busiest of them is geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO), about 36,000 kilometres up, where 572 satellites keep pace with the Earth’s rotation.

 

2. Counterspace Weapons Range From Reversible Jamming to Nuclear Detonation

DIA uses the term counterspace weapons for systems that can deny, jam, temporarily disable or permanently destroy satellites and the services they provide. Many are designed to disrupt a satellite’s service only temporarily. Others damage or destroy the satellite permanently.

Electronic attack, by jamming or spoofing signals, targets a country’s use of the electromagnetic spectrum. It can interfere with military communications and with the command and control of forces, including crewed and uncrewed vehicles. It can also disrupt position, navigation and timing (PNT) signals such as the Global Positioning System (GPS), often affecting civilian users nearby.

Cyber and physical attacks go after the systems behind the satellite. They can target ground stations and other infrastructure that support space operations. Cyberattacks can also target the data carried in a satellite’s signal and the systems that control its flow.

Directed-energy weapons (DEWs), chiefly lasers, can produce either kind of effect. They can blind imaging satellites temporarily or permanently and affect infrared and weather sensors, denying an adversary the ability to monitor, track and target forces.

Antisatellite (ASAT) missiles strike and destroy satellites directly. Their damage extends beyond the target, because the debris they create can remain in orbit for decades or even centuries. 

A nuclear detonation would be the most destructive option. DIA assesses that any country with nuclear weapons could probably launch a warhead on a long-range missile or space launch vehicle and detonate it at high altitude, or even place one in orbit. The blast would cause widespread electromagnetic disruption in space and on Earth, damaging or destroying satellites.

 

3. China’s Annual Launches Rise From 22 to 93 as Its Spy Fleet Expands

China has more than tripled its annual space launches in a decade. It made 22 launches in 2016 and a national record of 93 in 2025, 25 of them commercial. Over the same period, the number of satellites it places in orbit each year rose from 40 to 384.

China’s intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) fleet has grown with it. The fleet exceeded 510 satellites as of July 2026, more than triple its size in 2018, and provides optical and radar imagery as well as electronic and signals intelligence. Its satellites in LEO can image any location on Earth within 30 minutes.

Many of these satellites are nominally commercial or civil. DIA assesses that their dual-use capabilities, and possibly China’s military-civil fusion policy, mean their data can support military use. The policy integrates civilian, commercial and academic expertise into military programmes. Chinese companies also supply imagery to state actors that Western providers have refused for supporting weapons proliferation.

China is also building two large communications constellations in LEO. The state-owned Xingwang, also known as Guowang, had 177 satellites in orbit as of July 2026. The commercial Qianfan, which the report calls the Starlink G60 constellation, had 238.

The first Qianfan launch, in August 2024, added to the debris in orbit. The Long March-6A rocket body broke up into more than 300 pieces at about 800 kilometres, which DIA says will pose risks to satellites in LEO for decades.

 

4. China Seeks ‘Space Dominance’ With Missiles, Lasers and Grappling Satellites

China’s military doctrine sets out what it wants from space. DIA reports that Beijing treats space deterrence as part of military deterrence, with options that include both reversible and irreversible strikes on satellites. The report describes the objective of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA):

“The PLA’s objectives include space dominance: the ability to control the space-enabled information sphere and deny its adversaries their own space-based information gathering and communications capabilities. China views space dominance as a critical component to conduct modern ‘informatized warfare.’”

DIA assesses that China has developed, and will continue to advance, weapons to disrupt, damage and destroy other nations’ satellites. It already fields ground-based ASAT missiles capable of destroying satellites, and probably intends to deploy more that can reach satellites in low, medium and high orbits. The report notes that using them in a conflict would leave China facing debris fields that threaten its own satellites.

Lasers give China more flexibility. It has multiple ground-based laser weapons of varying power that can disrupt, degrade or damage satellites in LEO. By the late 2020s it may field directed-energy systems in space, and more powerful ground-based systems able to threaten satellites in higher orbits. DIA assesses that the PLA probably considers DEWs ideal counterspace weapons because they can cause both reversible and permanent effects.

China is also testing satellites that can approach and handle others. It has launched Shijian-21 and other satellites into GEO to research debris removal and test maintenance technologies. DIA notes that such systems, including Shijian-17, which carries a robotic arm, can be used to grapple other satellites. In January 2022 Shijian-21 moved a derelict BeiDou navigation satellite to a graveyard orbit above GEO.

Other Chinese satellites have closed on foreign spacecraft. Several times in 2023, TJS-3, which China describes as an experimental communications satellite, came within 10 kilometres of other nations’ spacecraft in GEO. DIA judges these approaches largely inconsistent with the satellites’ stated missions, suggesting China may have obscured their true purpose. 

China has also tested a weapon that travels partly through orbit. In July 2021 it launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) carrying a hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV) on a fractional orbital path, completing part of a circuit of the Earth before descending on its target. The flight covered about 40,000 kilometres in more than 100 minutes, the farthest and longest of any Chinese land-attack weapon to date. DIA likens the test to Soviet-era technology that combined hypersonic glide vehicles with orbital bombardment, possibly to deliver nuclear payloads from space with little warning.

 

5. Russia Builds Missiles, Lasers and a Satellite to Carry a Nuclear Weapon

Russian military doctrine treats space as a warfighting domain. DIA reports that Russia regards achieving space supremacy as a decisive factor in winning modern conflicts, a view it holds while publicly supporting arms control agreements to prevent the weaponisation of space. Moscow sees US dependence on space as a critical vulnerability, one it plans to exploit in a conflict.

Lasers give Russia a way to blind the reconnaissance satellites that watch its forces. Russia has deployed one such laser, Peresvet, with five of its strategic missile divisions. The system is designed to dazzle the optical sensors of satellites and mask the movements of those forces. A second laser, Kalina, is intended to go further and blind or permanently damage satellite components. It was due in 2014 and has been repeatedly delayed, but DIA reports new construction at its site since 2022 and assesses that the system may be nearing completion.

Beyond blinding satellites, Russia has shown it can destroy them. In November 2021 a Nudol mobile antisatellite missile destroyed one of Russia’s own defunct satellites in LEO. The strike created more than 1,700 pieces of trackable debris and tens of thousands too small to track. Some remain in orbit, endangering the spacecraft of every nation operating there, including the International Space Station (ISS) and China’s Tiangong. 

Russian satellites have also shadowed US satellites in orbit. In 2019 Russia launched Cosmos 2542, which released a second satellite, Cosmos 2543. Cosmos 2543 began following a US national security satellite, approaching it several times at distances close enough to create potentially dangerous conditions. In 2020, after moving away, it fired a projectile into orbit in what DIA describes as a space-based ASAT weapons test. Later satellites have repeated the pattern. Cosmos 2558 approached a US government satellite in 2022, Cosmos 2576 was placed in the orbit of another in 2024, and Cosmos 2588, launched in May 2025, has manoeuvred within about 93 kilometres of a third. Since the report was completed, the United States has accused Russia at the United Nations (UN) of deliberately manoeuvring Cosmos 2612 dangerously close to ICEYE-X36, a commercial radar satellite that supplies imagery to Ukraine.

DIA reports that Russia is also developing a satellite designed to carry a nuclear weapon. Placing one in orbit would breach Russia’s obligations under the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which bars nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction from orbit. A nuclear detonation in space would leave radiation belts that could persist for years, damaging satellites that were at first only temporarily disrupted.

 

6. Russia’s War in Ukraine Turns Commercial Satellites Into Targets

 DIA reports that the war in Ukraine is demonstrating the advantages commercial satellites can give a military, including on the battlefield. Russia moved against them from the outset. On 24 February 2022, immediately before its forces invaded, Russian malware targeted customers of Viasat’s high-speed satellite communications service and disrupted service for 50,000 users across Ukraine and other European countries. Russian forces have since intermittently jammed GPS signals over Russian-controlled territory, especially along the border with Ukraine.

The commercial constellations supporting Ukraine have become targets in their own right. Russia has jammed them, and has designated US commercial terminals and other commercial satellites supporting Ukraine as legitimate military targets.

Their effectiveness has also convinced Moscow that Russia needs more satellites of its own to keep pace, and it has turned to China for help. Since the invasion, Russian government and military organisations have looked to Beijing for space-based support for their operations in Ukraine and to maintain Russia’s own space capabilities. Russia has also received space components from China to cover shortages caused by sanctions.

 

7. Iran Fields Jammers, Trades Space Attacks With the US and Builds Dual-Use Rockets

DIA assesses that Iran recognises the strategic value of weapons against satellites and has shown willingness to use them. Its weapons are ground-based jammers. Tehran has publicly acknowledged that it can jam space-based communications and GPS signals, and it fields systems including the Nazir, Fajr-3 and Zolfaqar.

Space assets became targets in Iran’s 2026 conflict with the United States. DIA reports that with the onset of Operation Epic Fury, the two countries took offensive actions against each other’s space capabilities. On 16 March Israel’s military said it had destroyed a space research compound in Tehran that was “used to develop weapons to threaten Israeli satellites and the space assets of other countries.” In June multiple organisations reported jamming near the Strait of Hormuz that disrupted US aircraft and merchant shipping.

Iran’s own space programme remains small. It has made seven successful launches since 2020, placing 11 satellites in LEO, and Russia has launched two more for it. Some Western analysts are concerned that its work on larger rockets, which share much of their technology with ICBMs, will improve its long-range missile potential.

 

8. North Korea Pursues Space Through Missiles, Satellite Threats and Cyber Operations

 DIA describes North Korea’s space programme as expanding slowly, with multiple launch failures and few successes over more than two decades. Its only operational satellite is Malligyong-1, a military reconnaissance satellite launched in November 2023. The programme has also served another purpose: it has let Pyongyang test ballistic missile technology under what DIA calls “the guise of peaceful use of space,” providing valuable data for developing long-range and multi-stage missiles. 

Those missiles could be turned on satellites. DIA assesses that North Korea’s ICBMs and space rockets may be able to serve as basic ASAT weapons against US and partner satellites in a conflict. After launching Malligyong-1, Pyongyang stated its intent to develop sophisticated ASAT weapons and threatened to destroy US satellites if Washington “tries to violate the legitimate territory” of North Korea, a reference to its satellite programme.

Pyongyang has also gone after US space technology through cyber operations. DIA reports that North Korean actors consistently target the defence industries of foreign partners and have attempted to compromise US government networks. Several North Korean hacker groups have targeted the US aerospace industry, potentially gaining information about or access to space technologies.

 

9. DIA Expects Crowding and Cheaper Launches to Raise Risks in Orbit Through 2040

The report also treats crowding in orbit as a hazard to every country’s satellites. As of July 2026, cataloguing efforts had identified more than 35,000 objects of at least 10 centimetres in Earth orbit, including working satellites. DIA expects the large constellations several nations plan to launch by 2030 to triple the spacecraft population in LEO, and the chance of collision there to rise until at least 2040.

Large constellations depend on frequent, affordable launches, which reusable rockets are designed to provide. The United States is the only country that fields an operational reusable space launch vehicle (SLV), and China hopes to be the second. Russia’s state space corporation, Roscosmos, plans its reusable Amur-SPG rocket by 2030. DIA assesses that threats to US and allied space systems could increase over the next decade if China and Russia succeed in developing reusable space systems. 

China is also planning a constellation in very low Earth orbit (VLEO), about 150 to 300 kilometres up, where satellites cost less to launch and take sharper images. The China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC), a state-owned defence contractor, plans to deploy the 300-satellite Chutian constellation there by 2030. CASIC expects it to deliver half-metre imagery within 10 to 15 minutes of a request.

 

Conclusion

The 2026 edition of Challenges to Security in Space describes a domain in which China and Russia are building weapons to jam, blind, disable or destroy satellites. The report expects these capabilities, the growing number of objects in orbit and rising demand for space services to complicate operations in space over the coming decade. Large constellations are set to triple the spacecraft population in low Earth orbit by 2030, and DIA expects the risk of collision there to rise until at least 2040.

The full report is available from DIA here.