By Sandra Erwin
Welcome to this week's edition of SpaceNews' Military Space, your source for the latest developments at the intersection of space and national security. In this week's edition: a new report on China's advances in space and implications for U.S. policy; Space Force focuses on space domain awareness and training for orbital warfare; and a new CEO is named for the Aerospace Corporation.
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China's space playbook poses 'systemic risk' to U.S. leadership
Beijing is fundamentally reshaping space, according to a new Commercial Space Federation report.
China's space program has undergone a deliberate and relentless transformation over the past decade, accelerating beyond America's pace in many areas and presenting a systemic risk to U.S. industrial, technological and security leadership, the report said. The analysis, titled Redshift: The Acceleration of China's Commercial and Civil Space Enterprise & The Challenge to America, is supported by data from BryceTech and Orbital Gateway Consulting.
Among the findings: China's operational doctrine of military-civil fusion, which ensures that commercial achievements directly benefit the military, is of concern for the Pentagon. This means every win in commercial space doubles as a national security victory. China has demonstrated direct ascent anti-satellite capabilities and is now focusing on dual-use satellite operations, including sophisticated on-orbit maneuvers that could serve counterspace missions. The integration of technologies such as self-defense robots, AI assistants, and In-Space Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing (ISAM) capabilities on the Tiangong space station blurs the boundary between civil and military applications. The proliferation of next-generation reusable rockets and private launch startups complicates U.S. efforts to monitor and respond to greatly accelerated Chinese launch activities with potential security implications. New lunar space situational awareness projects are designed to enhance China's ability to monitor lunar activity and could challenge U.S. domain awareness in cislunar regions. The report warns that China's booming launch infrastructure "could upend U.S. launch assumptions."
Chinese firms are rapidly developing and fielding next-generation reusable rockets, which are expected to drive per-launch costs down and attract worldwide commercial satellite operators. The CSF says this threatens to undercut U.S. providers' pricing models and erode market share. Even as China remains behind the United States in realized launch capacity, the momentum is challenging America's long-assumed orbital dominance
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Saltzman warns of space domain awareness gaps
The top Space Force general delivered a stark warning: America's ability to track threats in space is dangerously outdated for an era where adversaries can launch surprise attacks on U.S. satellites.
Gen. Chance Saltzman, chief of space operations, told the Advanced Maui Optical and Space Surveillance Technologies (AMOS) Conference last week that current surveillance tools are lagging behind the reality of a crowded and contested orbital environment. The U.S. still relies on a Cold War–era "space catalog" that struggles to keep up with thousands of new satellites, rising debris and adversary weapons. "We cannot be satisfied if it takes us hours to detect on-orbit activity, and we definitely cannot be satisfied if full characterization of on-orbit events takes weeks and months," Saltzman said. "The longer it takes to update the catalog, the more problematic the issue, the less domain awareness we have." He said the U.S. must shift from slow, incremental upgrades to comprehensive solutions for space domain awareness — what the Pentagon calls the ability to track, understand and predict all activity in orbit. The stakes are high: a well-timed strike against satellites could blind U.S. forces that depend on space for communications, navigation, and targeting. Saltzman's prescription: more manpower, better tools, rewritten policies — and embracing commercial technology faster.
"We need you, everyone in this room today, to help us turn commercial innovations into warfighting advantage," he told industry leaders. That signals a shift from the service's historically cautious stance on private-sector partnerships.
The Space Force's April 2024 commercial space strategy and its new international partnership framework, Saltzman said, should accelerate adoption of commercial services. But he cautioned that only "decision-quality understanding" — not just more sensors and data streams — will keep the U.S. from being caught off guard.
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Inside the Space Force's training push
While rockets and satellites get most of the attention when it comes to Space Force hardware, leaders are increasingly emphasizing that training and readiness are just as important.
"Training becomes another area of attention for us moving forward," Saltzman said at the AMOS conference.
His message there was that U.S. space superiority will hinge on how well guardians train, not just what they fly. "I want the best trained guardians that understand their equipment, understand the threats that they face are and understand the tactics to mitigate those threats," he said.
The service is building a full test and training infrastructure spanning operators, intelligence, acquisition and cyber. "We're really going to focus on readiness … and building the equipment that we know we need to sustain that readiness in a contested domain," Saltzman said. The Operational Test and Training Infrastructure (OTTI) program commands about $250 million a year. OTTI is charged with expanding digital and virtual training access, deploying physical training systems and acquiring on-orbit surrogates that let operators rehearse satellite missions before putting operational constellations at risk. "You have to buy training assets," Saltzman said. "If you're going to build a force, it's not just about building a constellation. You have to build a force that's capable of using it." OTTI deputy director F Schnell told SpaceNews the demand for advanced training and testing technology is a multi-year business opportunity, spanning software, hardware and live-virtual-constructive environments.
Contractors, Schnell warned, need to think beyond hardware delivery: "We really need them to think about how that capability is going to be trained or tested or exercised."
For industry, this means that every new system pitched to the Space Force will be evaluated not only on mission capability, but also on how it integrates into a growing training and readiness enterprise.
Earlier this month, Space Systems Command activated System Delta 81 at Peterson SFB to serve as the headquarters for OTTI acquisitions and integration. The portfolio includes a digital training environment and a high-fidelity simulation suite modeled on the Air Force and Navy's Joint Simulation Environment.
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Aerospace Corp. names new CEO
Tanya Pemberton has been named the new president and CEO of The Aerospace Corporation, succeeding Steve Isakowitz, who is retiring after nine years in the role. Pemberton will officially assume the CEO responsibilities Oct. 18.
Aerospace, a non-profit federally funded research and development center, gets about $1 billion a year in contracts from military and defense agencies for systems engineering and integration services supporting the national space community. It focuses on space systems, technology consulting and engineering services.
Pemberton previously served as Aerospace's executive vice president. She previously worked at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, National Reconnaissance Office and had other senior executive assignments in the intelligence community.
The transition to Pemberton's leadership is part of a deliberate succession plan announced in March 2025.
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