U.S. Space Force Expands Australia Satellite Surveillance Network Against Chinese Anti-Satellite Threats.

U.S. Space Force Combat Forces Command has used Lt. Gen. Gregory Gagnon’s visit to Australia to push space surveillance, secure satellite communications and counterspace defense to the forefront of allied military planning in the Indo-Pacific, as growing Chinese and Russian capabilities increase the risk of satellites being tracked, jammed or attacked during a conflict. The announcement, published on May 1, 2026, by Combat Forces Command Public Affairs, highlights how U.S. and Australian forces are preparing to preserve battlefield coordination, missile warning and long-range targeting even in a contested space environment.

Key Australian-based systems, including the Space Surveillance Telescope and the Holt C-Band radar at Exmouth, strengthen allied capacity to detect and track satellites, monitor hostile activity in orbit and maintain operational awareness across the Indo-Pacific. The effort reflects a broader shift toward treating space as an active combat domain where survivability of communications, navigation and reconnaissance networks can directly shape the speed, accuracy and effectiveness of modern military operations.

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U.S. and Australian space forces are expanding surveillance, satellite communications and counterspace monitoring from Western Australia to strengthen allied detection, command resilience and targeting awareness across the Indo-Pacific (Picture source: U.S. DoW).

At Naval Communication Station Harold E. Holt near Exmouth, Western Australia, the Australian Defence Force’s No. 1 Space Surveillance Unit remotely operates the Space Surveillance Telescope and C-Band radar. At the same time, U.S. Space Force Operating Location Bravo at RAAF Base Edinburgh synchronizes operations with Space Delta 2. The telescope was moved from White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico after U.S.-Australian agreements in 2012 and 2013, achieved first light in Australia on March 5, 2020, and was operationally accepted on September 14, 2022. Its mission is not astronomy; it is to detect, track, catalogue and identify satellites and debris, particularly in geostationary orbit and beyond, where military communications, missile-warning and ISR satellites operate at long endurance.

The Space Surveillance Telescope gives the alliance a technically unusual sensor in the Southern Hemisphere. The U.S. Space Force describes it as a 100-ton optical system, machine-repositioned every nine seconds for geostationary-orbit imaging, using an f/1 optical design and a 3.6-meter primary mirror. Those figures matter operationally because deep-space surveillance is a search problem as much as an identification problem: a sensor must cover large volumes of sky, return rapidly to areas of interest, and help operators distinguish routine satellite station-keeping from proximity operations, debris events or deliberate maneuvers. The Holt C-Band radar complements it by covering low- and medium-Earth orbits, supporting catalogue maintenance, narrowband space object identification, launch tracking, satellite breakup monitoring and maneuver characterization. Together, the optical telescope and radar give commanders a better orbital picture than either sensor would provide alone.

The armament issue in this case is counterspace weaponry rather than conventional missiles, guns or bombs. China has already demonstrated a direct-ascent anti-satellite capability, destroying a defunct weather satellite in low Earth orbit in 2007, and U.S. assessments state that the weapon family evolved into an operational system intended to target low-orbit satellites. The same threat assessment says the Defense Intelligence Agency believes China probably intends to field anti-satellite weapons able to reach geosynchronous orbit at about 36,000 km; a 2013 Chinese ballistic object reportedly reached roughly 30,000 km, suggesting at least a basic ability to threaten higher orbital regimes. This is not a niche technical concern: a direct-ascent anti-satellite missile can physically destroy a spacecraft that supports communications, reconnaissance, missile warning or navigation, although the debris created by such an intercept may also endanger unrelated spacecraft.

China’s counterspace inventory is broader than kinetic interceptors. U.S. reporting states that the People’s Liberation Army has more than 510 ISR-capable satellites with optical, multispectral, radar and radiofrequency sensors, and that these spacecraft improve China’s ability to detect U.S. aircraft carriers, expeditionary forces and air wings. The same assessment lists ground-based laser weapons able to disrupt, degrade or damage satellite sensors, military exercises involving jammers against space-based communications, radars and GPS-like navigation, and “inspection and repair” satellites that could also be used as weapons. The tactical logic is clear: optical and radar satellites help build the target track; electronic attack slows or corrupts the adversary’s command links; lasers can blind or degrade sensors; and co-orbital spacecraft may inspect, shadow, interfere with or potentially disable another satellite without the immediate signature of a missile launch.

Russia presents a different but still relevant set of risks. U.S. Space Force reporting says Russia tested its Nudol direct-ascent anti-satellite missile in November 2021, striking a defunct Soviet satellite and creating about 1,500 trackable debris pieces. It also states that Russia has deployed probable orbital anti-satellite prototypes into low Earth orbit in 2017, 2019, 2022, 2024 and 2025, with the four most recent placed in orbits matching U.S. national security satellites. In February 2025, three Russian satellites reportedly conducted maneuvers enabling close approaches of under one kilometer, while Peresvet laser weapons have been deployed to five strategic missile divisions since 2018. These systems suggest a mixed Russian approach: debris-producing interceptors, close-approach spacecraft, laser dazzling or blinding, electronic warfare and cyber activity against commercial or military space services.

For U.S., Australian and allied forces, the operational effect is measured in targeting timelines rather than abstract “space control.” A carrier strike group, amphibious force or deployed air wing in the Western Pacific must assume that adversary ISR satellites are helping to update long-range missile targeting data. A ground force moving under air and missile threat depends on satellite communications, GPS timing, weather data, missile warning and access to theater intelligence feeds. If those services are jammed, spoofed or degraded, the effect can be immediate: fires missions take longer to clear, air defense units receive less reliable tracks, logistics routes lose precision, and commanders fall back on shorter-range communications that are easier to intercept or suppress.

The communications layer is equally important. Wideband Global SATCOM remains a core military communications system, providing high-capacity X-band and Ka-band services for U.S. government users, the Department of Defense, international partners and NATO. The constellation is operated through a space segment, a control segment and thousands of fixed, transportable, ground-mobile, airborne and shipborne terminals, with antenna diameters ranging from 0.4 meters to 18.4 meters. In practical terms, this architecture allows commanders to connect tactical users to the Defense Information Systems Network across oceanic distances. Its vulnerability is that jamming, cyber intrusion, terminal attack or satellite degradation can fragment the command network at the same time that long-range fires and air defense require faster data exchange.

The next stage of U.S.-Australian-UK cooperation is the Deep Space Advanced Radar Capability, or DARC, whose first site is in Western Australia. The trilateral memorandum of understanding was signed on September 27, 2023, for 22 years; construction of the first Australian site was completed in December 2024, three months ahead of schedule, with the site expected to become fully operational in 2027 and the full three-site network planned for completion by 2032. DARC is designed to track very small objects in geosynchronous orbit in all weather and daylight, using multiple smaller radar arrays that combine signals to act as one larger array. Its value is attribution: in a crisis, identifying whether a satellite failure resulted from malfunction, debris, close approach, jamming or deliberate attack may determine whether military commanders escalate, disperse or preserve forces.