US Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink’s admission that the United States possesses weapons in space has brought the militarisation of orbit back into focus, as China works to accelerate the development of recoverable and reusable rockets to cut launch costs. The two tracks are unfolding as US military thinking expands to include cislunar space, placing the principles established by the 1967 Outer Space Treaty under growing pressure.
Chinese media examines the US admission
The US announcement drew widespread attention in the Chinese press, which viewed it as a shift extending beyond the immediate military dimension to the rules governing competition between major powers, and potentially weakening the balance that has governed space activities for decades.
This comes after space became part of the infrastructure of the digital economy and a platform for technological and military superiority, rather than a scientific domain separate from economics, politics and security. The spread of dual-use technologies is making it increasingly difficult to separate civilian and military activities.
Rockets that enable internet satellites and communications services to be deployed at lower cost can also be used to launch military surveillance and communications satellites, while navigation, Earth-observation and data-management platforms can perform functions linked to early warning, command and control in different circumstances.
Outer Space Treaty sets out peaceful uses
The international legal regime governing space is based on the principle that its exploration and use should be devoted to peaceful purposes, keeping the Moon and other celestial bodies beyond military sovereignty and the logic of war. The Outer Space Treaty embodied this approach by banning the placement of nuclear weapons in orbit, restricting the deployment of weapons of mass destruction, affirming the peaceful use of celestial bodies and holding states responsible for damage caused by their space assets.
But reports by China’s Global Times said this framework was facing mounting pressure after the US admission that weapons for space control existed in orbit, alongside the expansion of military rhetoric to include the area near the Moon.
According to the newspaper’s reading, this expansion shifts competition from protecting satellites and assets around Earth towards a broader operational concept that could make the area between Earth and the Moon a potential arena for deterrence or confrontation. In this context, the newspaper quoted the Associated Press as saying that US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine had urged US forces to be prepared to fight, endure and prevail “from the seabed to cislunar space”.
Cislunar space enters deterrence calculations
Bringing cislunar space into this concept reflects a shift in military planning towards a domain encompassing distances, assets and trajectories beyond low Earth orbit. At the same time, Chinese companies are engaged in an industrial race to develop recoverable and reusable rockets.
This capability is no longer merely a symbolic engineering achievement, but has become a key economic and technological benchmark in the launch industry because of its direct impact on the number of flights that can be carried out and the cost of transporting each kilogram of payload into orbit. The South China Morning Post quoted Chinese company LandSpace as saying that the first stage accounts for about 70% of a rocket’s cost.
Recovering the stage and operating it again allows its cost to be spread across multiple flights instead of discarding it after a single mission, giving companies able to apply reuse routinely an advantage in pricing and launch frequency. This equation is linked to the nature of the new space economy, which relies on repeated, low-cost launches.
Deploying thousands of satellites for space internet services, sensor networks and orbital computing infrastructure becomes more difficult when a rocket’s main stages are consumed on every flight, whereas reusability enables the construction of extensive space infrastructure and turns launches into a more sustainable commercial activity.
The combined number of satellites in orbit under the Guowang and Qianfan projects is fewer than 500, equivalent to only about 4% of the 11,000 satellites in the Starlink constellation, according to figures reported by the South China Morning Post. China has made progress in demonstrating its ability to recover rocket stages.
Is China testing the recovery of rocket boosters on land and at sea, literally?
LandSpace successfully landed the booster of a Zhuque-3 rocket vertically using landing legs, in the first controlled Chinese ground recovery operation carried out in this way. The test demonstrated the ability to return the rocket stage to Earth instead of losing it after launch. China also tested the recovery of part of a Long March-10B rocket using a marine net system.
The technology is expected to reduce the precision required during landing, while avoiding the addition of heavy landing structures to the rocket and the associated increase in weight, which could affect payload and performance. However, landing a booster on the ground or catching it at sea does not automatically mean it can be used on another flight.
The operational challenge lies in inspecting, refurbishing and returning the recovered stage to service quickly and reliably, allowing individual test successes to be turned into a repeated launch programme that genuinely reduces costs.
Dai Jing, the chief commander of Zhuque-3 missions at LandSpace, said China had answered the question of whether the rocket could return, but had not yet established a mature system to determine whether a recovered rocket could fly again. This challenge separates proof of recovery technology from achieving regular commercial reusability.
The required system involves safely draining remaining fuel, inspecting the structure and tanks, assessing engine life, replacing damaged parts and then carrying out full functional tests before the next flight is authorised. The speed and cost of completing these steps determine the economic viability that can be achieved by recovering the rocket.
The gap with the United States is clearer when China’s tests are compared with the routine operations reached by SpaceX. The US company has carried out more than 600 missions using reusable boosters, while one Falcon 9 booster has reached its 37th flight, reflecting accumulated operational experience that goes beyond simply achieving recovery.
Estimates cited by the South China Morning Post indicate that the cost of some Chinese launch services could reach about $20,000 per kilogram of payload.
By contrast, the estimated cost of a reusable Falcon 9 ranges between $2,700 and $3,000 per kilogram, a difference that gives the US company an advantage in attracting missions and carrying out repeated launches.
On the military side, the concept of space deterrence is changing as competition shifts from low Earth orbit to the area between Earth and the Moon. In near-Earth orbit, attention is focused on protecting communications, navigation, reconnaissance and early-warning satellites, alongside possessing means to jam, disrupt or deny an adversary’s services.
In cislunar space, the calculations expand to include deep-space communications links, navigation routes, exploration and landing stations, and the logistics infrastructure needed to support human and robotic activity around the Moon and in more distant areas. This means future competition could be linked to freedom of access and movement and the protection of installations, rather than only the survival of satellites operating around Earth.
Global Times quoted Chinese military expert Zhang Junshe as saying that incorporating cislunar space into US military planning sought to secure an early advantage in future competition over resources and strategic influence around the Moon and in deep space. This concept also places infrastructure that could be used for exploration and commercial activity within calculations of influence and military deterrence.
Under this shift, space deterrence is not limited to systems capable of destroying or disabling orbital assets, but also includes the ability to monitor, manoeuvre, communicate and protect assets in the area between Earth and the Moon. These capabilities could affect other parties’ freedom of movement and their ability to use cislunar space and the routes leading to it.
Technological and military developments expose the limitations of the existing international governance rules. The core principles for space were established when states were almost the only major actors and orbital assets were fewer and less complex.
The current environment includes private companies, constellations comprising thousands of satellites, and advanced manoeuvring, sensing and communications technologies, with an increasing difficulty in distinguishing between their civilian and military functions.
Global Times, quoting Zhang, warned that the secrecy surrounding space weapons and the ambiguity over the nature of some orbital activities could lead routine manoeuvres or technical operations to be interpreted as hostile acts. This ambiguity could increase the risk of miscalculation and escalation, particularly in an environment where satellite movements are accelerating and multiple government and commercial entities operate them.
The newspaper said that deploying offensive capabilities in orbit alongside the development of space-based missile-defence systems could threaten global strategic stability and the shared interests of the international community, driving a new arms race. The risk is compounded by the absence of modern rules providing sufficient transparency about the nature, missions and limits of space systems.
Chinese data indicate that Beijing has moved closer to an advanced stage in the launch race after demonstrating the ability to recover first stages by land and sea, but it has not yet achieved the economics of routine relaunches. US companies, by contrast, retain a clear advantage in cost, mission frequency and accumulated expertise in inspecting boosters and returning them to service.
The extension of military rhetoric into cislunar space makes space infrastructure an increasingly important element of deterrence and power calculations, after years of focus on communications, navigation and civilian services.
These changes place the international governance system under pressure to address large constellations, dual-use technologies and orbital weapons, preventing superiority in launch, communications and sensing from becoming unilateral control of orbit or the space around the Moon.
