Space cyber intelligence: Chinese QUESS satellite
After years of investment and strategy, China is well on its way to becoming a space superpower—and maybe even a dominant one. Now, satellites guide Chinese aircraft, missiles, and drones, while watching over crop yields and foreign military bases.
The decades ahead will see a range of Chinese missions that will match—and maybe even surpass—previous NASA exploits, including quantum communications satellites and a crewed mission to the moon in the early 2030s. Starting in the ’80s, China put up sophisticated communications and intelligence satellites, and offered cheap satellite-launch services to other nations.
If any of this sounds like a repeat of feats already accomplished decades ago by others (U.S. and Soviet Union), that glib observation falls to pieces when you consider technologies like China’s QUESS satellite—which will likely be orbiting overhead by the time you read this. Short for Quantum Experiments at Space Scale, QUESS marks a first-of-its-kind attempt to beam quantum-encrypted information between an orbiting satellite and ground stations below. By encoding that information into the quantum states of particles like photons, such security schemes ensure that any attempt to intercept or tamper with the transmission alerts both sender and receiver, making quantum encryption theoretically unbreakable.
In an era of global electronic surveillance, a quantum-communications network could sidestep even the best cyber intelligence operations, allowing Chinese military and intelligence assets to swap information while keeping potential adversaries or spies in the dark. As long as China is the only nation bouncing quantum communications around the atmosphere, it will enjoy scientific and strategic security advantages, as well as a boost to economic security: QUESS researchers say that a long-term goal is the protection of financial communications.
China’s rising space prowess has, predictably, come with geopolitical friction between Beijing and Washington. While the nations have deep levels of trade with each other, they also eye one another as a security threat. In fact, China’s space program is repeatedly cited in U.S. security reports with a growing sense of unease. As the U.S. and Soviet Union learned in the 1960s and ’70s, showcasing capability in space often translates to influence on the ground.
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