{"id":47320,"date":"2026-03-23T22:11:22","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T14:11:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/chinas-space-development-is-outpacing-expectations-and-gaining-momentum-space-force-official-says\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T22:11:22","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T14:11:22","slug":"chinas-space-development-is-outpacing-expectations-and-gaining-momentum-space-force-official-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/chinas-space-development-is-outpacing-expectations-and-gaining-momentum-space-force-official-says\/","title":{"rendered":"China\u2019s Space Development is Outpacing Expectations and Gaining Momentum, Space Force Official Says"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<p>China\u2019s space asset developments are coming fast and furious as China drives toward the goal of becoming a major space power, outpacing Russia and causing more focused analysis by <strong>U.S. Space Command<\/strong>, according to <strong>U.S. Space Force<\/strong> Chief Master Sgt. Ron Lerch in his keynote speech at GovMilSpace during SATShow Week.<\/p>\n<p>China is the United States\u2019 \u201cprimary competitor in space,\u201d Lerch said, referencing China\u2019s 14th five year plan for economic and social development (China is currently working on the 15th plan). The plan emphasizes strengthening national strategic scientific and technological capabilities and achieving self-reliance in key technologies. Space technologies \u2014 satellites, launch systems, deep-space exploration \u2014 are treated as strategic high-tech domains within this push.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Chinese themselves are the first to have done a space force as part of their major defense reform efforts that were underway after Xi Jinping took over in 2012,\u201d Lerch said. \u201cHow did they do? It was an overwhelming success. They met or exceeded the majority of their goals.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When tracing China\u2019s space development back to 2015, \u201cIt\u2019s close to 700% growth on just the number of satellites for the Chinese that are on orbit today,\u201d Lerch said. \u201cThat number is not slowing down, as they\u2019re starting to really invest heavily and put on orbit their versions of proliferated constellations.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>What China is demonstrating with their space build-out is a confidence level with its commercial providers, he said. \u201cWe know so much of what they do and how entangled the commercial side in China is with the military side, there\u2019s likely a capability that exists for their military assets that\u2019s probably better.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. puts more payload on orbit, and does it with a reusable system that enables the launch cadence the U.S. is able to maintain. \u201cWe are more efficient at doing it than the Chinese currently are,\u201d Lerch said. \u201cThey know this, which is why they value the pursuit of reusable technology, and it is something that we see them actively working towards. We certainly expect those efforts are going to continue to be energized and heavily funded and prioritized, because there\u2019s too much on the line.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There are now 1,300 Chinese satellites on orbit, Lerch cited, and a number of those satellites are on unknown missions. There has been a significant surge in launches starting in mid-2025.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>China is also building up two constellations, currently over 100 spacecraft each and expected to eventually number 13,000 and 15,000 respectively. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese two constellations are sort of competing against each other, or possibly are going to work in concert with each other. It\u2019s an unknown, really,\u201d he said. \u201cThe big takeaway here is that they have been making some pretty good strides. That number of spacecraft on orbit is absolutely expected to grow over the next decade as the Chinese start to master reusable technology and are able to increase their launch cadence and become more efficient at launch.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Chinese are also exploring opportunities in cislunar space, with three assets already there doing initial testing for developing communications systems for the Moon and navigational infrastructure to support robotics capabilities.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is what a lot of the Chinese are starting to figure out when it comes to a cislunar conversation,\u201d Lerch said. \u201cThat\u2019ll be an interesting area that we are already seeing the Chinese get a head start on in terms of the different types of capabilities that they\u2019re putting out there. It\u2019ll be interesting to see just how much that grows here in the next five years. They talk about serving as a space-faring nation \u2014 not just a participant \u2014 but a leader.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>China\u2019s space asset developments are coming fast and furious as China drives toward the goal of becoming a major space power, outpacing Russia and causing more focused analysis by U.S. Space Command, according to U.S. Space Force Chief Master Sgt. Ron Lerch in his keynote speech at GovMilSpace during SATShow Week. China is the United [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47321,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47320"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}