Are humans about to plunge into a spectacular (and devastating) space war depicted in science fiction movies? Or is China’s progress more moderate than the headlines would have you believe?

Dogfighting refers to close-range acrobatic aerial battles such as those in which British Spitfires used to chase German Messerschmitts across the sky during the Battle of Britain in World War II.

Despite the fancy term, the Chinese satellite dogfighting, reported by the U.S. Space Force, is nowhere near as action-filled. At least not yet. This is what we know so far: Five Chinese satellites were observed by the U.S. military, “maneuvering in and out and around each other in synchronicity and in control,” Gen. Michael A. Guetlein, the U.S. vice chief of space operations, told media at McAleese Defense Programs Conference in Arlington, Virginia, in March. 

Western security experts are concerned China is practicing such maneuvers and will use these technologies to damage or disable other nations’ spacecraft. It’s not unthinkable. Many security professionals believe humanity is inching closer to World War Three since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China's posturing against Taiwan, and now, rising tensions and violence along the Indian-Pakistan border. All involving space superpowers who could maintain a theater of war in orbit.

If these conflicts grow further, China would certainly stand against the West, using its fast-expanding spacecraft fleet to further its interests and establish military dominance in space.

Still, details of China’s actual capabilities are scarce, mostly because China doesn’t disclose them. U.S. space traffic monitoring firm LeoLabs confirmed to Breaking Defense it had observed three experimental satellites from the Shiyan-24C family and two others from the Shijian-6 fleet practice close-proximity operations in low Earth orbit. That’s the highly populated area up to 2,000 km (1,200 miles) above Earth’s surface where most satellites live — including those belonging to internet-beaming mega-constellations.

In December last year, California-based space domain awareness firm ExoAnalytics revealed that Chinese “stalker” spacecraft regularly move all over the geostationary ring. This orbit, some 36,000 km (22,000 miles) above the planet, houses many broadcasting and spy satellites. 

These stalkers, ExoAnalytics’ Chief Growth Officer Clinton Clark said at a conference, move in the most unusual manner, “going up and down” and around the geostationary belt, which is sought by others for its “stationary” qualities (satellites in the geostationary orbit circle Earth at a speed that matches that of the rotation of the planet, which keeps them in a fixed position that offers constant views of a large portion of the globe). The goal of these strange maneuvers, performed with unexpected speed and agility, is to learn what American satellites are up to, experts think.

The West has been observing Chinese space movements with apprehension for quite a few years now. In January 2022, U.S. space-traffic watchers witnessed the Chinese satellite Shijian-21 perform an elaborate dance in geostationary orbit around a defunct navigation spacecraft from the Chinese constellation BeiDou. Then, in a move that puzzled western observers, Shijian-21 latched onto the defunct BeiDou and dragged it 3,000 km (1,800 miles) away into the graveyard orbit, a region above the geostationary ring where spacecraft get moved at the end of their life in order not to clog the sought after belt. 

On the surface, this act of space tidiness might be commendable. But it triggered alarm bells in the western space security community. Why? It wouldn’t be that much more difficult for Shijian-21 to grab an operational American spy satellite and toss it away. 

Experts believe these are the early days of much more sophisticated space warfare than has been conceivable before.

“China is able to do some very sophisticated proximity maneuvers in space, which obviously can have a nefarious purpose,” Juliana Suess, a space security researcher at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs told Supercluster. “At the moment, they are ahead of everyone else. But we don’t really know why they are doing all that. Are they preparing for something? Are they testing their limits? Or are they just showing off to the west?”

Space technologies are playing an indispensable role in modern warfighting. The whole world watched through the eyes of Earth-observing satellites when Russian troops amassed around Ukraine’s borders in early 2022 and then crossed over in late February. Views from space have been invaluable ever since for Ukraine’s commanders in their unending struggle to stay one step ahead of Russia’s moves.

It’s not just Earth observation satellites that plays a crucial role. The Starlink constellation has kept the besieged nation’s war fighters connected since Russia took down their internet and cellular networks shortly after the invasion. The invasion also came accompanied with a major cyber-attack on ground-infrastructure of satellite operator Viasat, which too had been providing services to Ukraine. 

In other words, disrupt your enemy’s access to space and you are a major leap closer to victory. Both, China and Russia know that. Electronic methods that target the signal of communication and navigation satellites (jamming and spoofing) are now an everyday occurrence in Ukraine. These methods, however, don’t work against spy satellites and require a continuous effort to maintain. Until recently, the only other method to deny an adversary access to a space asset involved rather messy measures such as anti-satellite missile strikes and (as Russia once threatened) nuclear explosions in space.

Both China and Russia have conducted anti-satellite missile tests (in 2007 and 2021 respectively), having destroyed their own satellites. These demonstrations of crude destructive power cluttered the orbit with thousands of dangerous fragments making the environment less safe not only for their adversaries but for the perpetrators themselves. 

China more than Russia would be inclined to avoid such moves in the future. “China now has a vested interest in keeping space a safe environment,” said Suess. “They haven’t done it again since 2007 and I think they would generally want to avoid such debris-producing events again.”

Stalking robotic spacecraft grabbers are the perfect tool to get rid of a pesky enemy spy satellite with surgical precision without creating any clutter at all. And these grabbers are just a beginning. The dogfighting satellite could be equipped with high-energy lasers or devices generating concentrated microwave energy beams. Both kinds of weaponry can be used to fry the enemy satellite’s electronics.

Suess says that as impressive as these technologies may sound, they are likely to be rather toothless against large constellations of satellites that now dominate low Earth orbit. 

Dallas Kasaboski, space infrastructure analyst at the Analysis Mason consultancy, agrees that low Earth orbit battles, in which formations of dogfighting satellites demolish a constellation of Earth-observing or telecommunication spacecraft, are still “in the realm of science fiction.” Space, however, he says, is firmly moving from an era of inert blocks dully following the laws of gravity to one filled with much more movement.

The West, in fact, is not that much behind in the development of these agile next-generation technologies. For years, western governments have been funding the development of in-orbit servicing systems capable of refueling or repairing existing spacecraft. Various kinds of robo grabbers, including those using magnets and space harpoons have also been tested in orbit as part of active space debris removal initiatives.

“Previously, the focus has been on the satellite itself,” Kasaboski said. “You would add more broadband capacity, steerable beams or reconfigurable antennas. Now we are seeing the focus shift to support satellites and support infrastructure.”

The U.S Space Force announced in March that it will run a series of experiments to test refueling in space. Among the commercial companies to collaborate on these missions, set to launch in 2026 and 2027, is Astroscale. This Japan-headquartered company demonstrated in 2021 in orbit capture technologies as part of its ELSA-D demonstration mission.

Last year, Astroscale’s Adras-J spacecraft completed an up-close inspection of a discarded rocket stage, which it will attempt to remove from orbit by the end of this decade.

“That technology has come a lot further than it used to be a couple of years ago,” said Suess. “There is a bit of push and pull between sustainability and security. But these capabilities are there.”

Plans for orbital fuel-depots are discussed in the open as part of the drive to improve sustainability of space operations by extending the lifespan of satellites with the help of in-orbit servicing. Many other U.S. military space activities, on the other hand, remain cloaked in mystery, Kasaboski pointed out. 

For example, little is known about the more than year-long mission of the top-secret X-37B space plane operated by the U.S. Air Force. In a statement marking the completion of the mission, the U.S. Space Force made rather vague revelations about the nature of the plane’s activities. The force said the spacecraft performed “space domain awareness experiments” and demonstrated its ability to use aerobreaking to save fuel during its mission. 

“The activity of these space planes in orbit is really not known publicly,” Kasaboski said. “It’ really hard to talk about what we don’t know but it seems that China is ahead in those capabilities but only just barely.”

Kasoboski thinks that although the way things are done in space is set to transform in the coming years, the most likely actions to target satellites in space during near-future warfare will remain within the limits of terrestrial-based cyber-attacks. 

“Electronic interference, jamming and hacking will remain the most plausible ways to attack a satellite,” Kasaboski said. “The attackers may learn how to hide their actions better, they may learn how to confuse a satellite with false information to make it perform some illogical maneuvers. This is something they might be able to get away with.”

Suess added: “There certainly has been a technological shift. But is it possible that a satellite will get kidnapped and dragged away anytime soon? It may be technically possible, but I don’t think it’s likely to happen any time soon.”