The Washington PostDemocracy Dies in Darkness

U.S. is concerned about rivals’ space threats, leaked documents show

Russia’s program is in tatters, while China has developed ways to counter American capabilities

Updated April 27, 2023 at 11:47 a.m. EDT|Published April 25, 2023 at 5:19 p.m. EDT
Russia is the United States’ operating partner on the International Space Station. (NASA/Photographer: NASA/Getty Images)
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Russia’s troubled space program “very likely will diminish during the next decade” as it faces increased global competition, U.S. sanctions and the rise of SpaceX, which has eaten a large chunk of Russia’s space launch revenue, according to a leaked top secret U.S. intelligence document obtained by The Washington Post.

At the same time, China has developed significant capabilities “to hold key U.S. and Allied space assets at risk,” and would deploy them in any conflict with Taiwan, according to another leaked document.

Taken together, the assessments show the increased importance space has in modern warfare, highlighted by the conflict in Ukraine, and they underline the kinds of threats military analysts have been warning about for years.

The Post obtained the documents, which have not been previously reported, from a trove of intelligence material allegedly leaked to a Discord chatroom by Jack Teixeira, a member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard.

The Defense Department declined to comment.

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Dozens of highly classified documents have been leaked online, revealing sensitive information intended for senior military and intelligence leaders. In an exclusive investigation, The Post also reviewed scores of additional secret documents, most of which have not been made public.
Who leaked the documents? Jack Teixeira, a young member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, was charged in the investigation into leaks of hundreds of pages of classified military intelligence. The Post reported that the individual who leaked the information shared documents with a small circle of online friends on the Discord chat platform.
What do the leaked documents reveal about Ukraine? The documents reveal profound concerns about the war’s trajectory and Kyiv’s capacity to wage a successful offensive against Russian forces. According to a Defense Intelligence Agency assessment among the leaked documents, “Negotiations to end the conflict are unlikely during 2023.”
What else do they show? The files include summaries of human intelligence on high-level conversations between world leaders, as well as information about advanced satellite technology the United States uses to spy. They also include intelligence on both allies and adversaries, including Iran and North Korea, as well as Britain, Canada, South Korea and Israel.
What happens now? The leak has far-reaching implications for the United States and its allies. In addition to the Justice Department investigation, officials in several countries said they were assessing the damage from the leaks.
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The leak comes as the U.S. Space Force enters its third year of operation and as senior Pentagon leaders sound the alarm over increased threats coming from space.

Speaking last week at the Space Symposium conference in Colorado Springs, Space Force Gen. Chance Saltzman, the chief of space operations, said the Pentagon is “seeing an incredibly sophisticated array of threats” that includes jamming of communications and GPS satellites, spacecraft that can grapple other satellites, lasers that can dazzle them, cyberattacks and even “nesting dolls,” or satellites that release others that spread out and track adversaries’ spacecraft.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said during the conference that China “has doubled the number of their satellites just since the Space Force was established.” It now has more than 700 in operation with about 250 used for ISR, or intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.

Both China and Russia have the ability to destroy satellites in orbit with missiles. China did so in 2007, while in 2021, Russia destroyed a dead satellite with a missile, creating a massive field of debris and drawing condemnation from the United States and international community. The Post previously reported that leaked documents showed Russia has also experimented with its Tobol electronic warfare system in an attempt to disrupt SpaceX’s Starlink satellite system, which has kept Ukrainians connected throughout the conflict with Russia.

In its annual “Space Threat Assessment” report, released this month, the Center for Strategic and International Studies found that “China continues to make progress toward its goal of becoming the world leader in space. Over the past year, China has continued to grow its space and counterspace assets, maintaining its status as the second-most-capable space nation after the United States.”

China has also developed a space station in low Earth orbit, landed a spacecraft on the far side of the moon and a rover on Mars. It also plans to put astronauts on the moon and is targeting the lunar south pole, where NASA’s Artemis program also intends to send astronauts.

China by far has the more dynamic space program of the two U.S. rivals, U.S. officials say.

One of the leaked documents says “[China’s] overall military strategy to establish and maintain information dominance in conflict drives Beijing’s development of space and counterspace doctrine, capabilities and TTP,” or tactics, techniques and procedures.

As part of a military strike on Taiwan, China would probably jam communications and intelligence satellites that can see through clouds, “degrade or destroy space ground networks” and “destroy ballistic missile early warning satellites,” the document says.

During a congressional hearing last week, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson repeated his belief that the country is in a space race with China on the civilian side as well, and warned that the United States needed to get its astronauts to the moon before China does.

“If you let China get there first, what’s to stop them from saying, ‘We’re here. This is our area. You stay out.’ That’s why I think it’s important for us to get there on an international mission and establish the rules of the road.”

While China’s space program has been advancing steadily, Russia’s has diminished, according to the leaked intelligence files. Along with global competition, “severed Western partnerships and disrupted supply chains also very likely have hampered the Russian space program’s ability to generate funding, which has been in decline since at least 2020,” one of the documents says.

Without mentioning SpaceX by name, the document noted that in 2020, “a named U.S. commercial company was certified to transport astronauts to the International Space Station; the U.S. had paid $75-85M per seat on Russian spacecraft.”

The document also noted that “foreign customers have canceled planned launches on Russian [rockets] and other space-related activities, eliminating a key revenue stream.” Foreign sources provided an additional $4.5 billion in 2020 to Russia’s approximately $17 billion space budget, the document said.

Another factor in its gradual demise is that “Russia has been unable to easily obtain space-grade components due to Western sanctions, forcing production delays of military and civilian satellites,” according to the document.

Before 2014, the document said, “Moscow deprioritized domestic production of space components because superior Western technology was readily available.” And now, “Moscow is seeking to increase material assistance from [China] to sustain its space industry,” the document reads.

“Russian companies attempted to create space-rated components for select satellites,” the document asserts. “But the low quality of the components led to on-orbit malfunctions.” It did not identify specific failings.

Last year, the Kremlin appointed Yuri Borisov, a deputy prime minister, to replace Dmitry Rogozin as the head of Roscosmos, the Russian space agency. Rogozin had threatened to end the partnership with the United States on the International Space Station over the U.S. response to the war in Ukraine.

While the partnership has endured, Russia has had serious problems with two of its spacecraft. This year, Roscosmos was forced to send a replacement Soyuz spacecraft to the station after another one suffered a puncture to one of its external coolant lines and sprang a leak. The damaged spacecraft was deemed unsuitable for returning cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin, as well as NASA astronaut Frank Rubio.

Then another spacecraft, this one used for cargo only, suffered a similar leak. It was not clear whether they were hit by micrometeorites or had manufacturing defects.

The Discord Leaks

The Washington Post and “Frontline” partnered to investigate Jack Teixeira’s alleged leak of classified U.S. intelligence on the Discord chat platform. The new documentary, “The Discord Leaks,” premiered Tuesday, Dec. 12 and is available to watch on PBS streaming platforms and washingtonpost.com.

The suspected document leaker: Teixeira, a young member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, was indicted on six charges. Interviews with people who knew Teixeira offer the most detailed account yet of how he allegedly leaked classified information and his motivations. Discord’s rules and culture allowed a racist and antisemitic community to flourish, giving Teixeira an eager audience unlikely to report his alleged lawbreaking.

How the leak happened: The Washington Post reported that the individual who leaked the information shared documents with a small circle of online friends on the Discord chat platform. The Air Force disciplined 15 members of the Air National Guard after an internal investigation found that a “lack of supervision” helped enable Teixeira. This is a timeline of how the documents leaked.

What we learned from the leaked documents: The massive document leak has exposed a range of U.S. government secrets, including spying on allies, the grim prospects for Ukraine’s war with Russia and the precariousness of Taiwan’s air defenses. It also has ignited diplomatic fires for the White House. Here’s what we’ve learned from the documents.