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Ling Xin

In a rare study, Chinese aerospace researchers have explored how a war could one day spill into the vast space between the Earth and the moon, with rival spacecraft chasing and evading each other, trying to slip past defences and even blocking strategic routes.
Spacecraft could hide in the complex gravitational environment around the moon, where their trajectories are difficult to predict, before emerging and moving towards targets closer to Earth when needed, according to a team from the Northwestern Polytechnical University in Xian.
The craft could also be stationed near “choke points” – regions where important or fuel-efficient routes converge – ready to intercept rivals and potentially force them to break through or take less efficient routes, the researchers wrote in the Chinese-language Journal of Command and Control in July.
Such capabilities could have an impact without an actual confrontation, they argued.
“Without directly using force, [a country could] compel an adversary to change its route, delay a mission, give up a launch window or incur higher costs,” said Dang Zhaohui, the report’s lead author and an associate professor at Northwestern Polytechnical University’s school of astronautics.
“What is at stake in cislunar orbital competition is not any single spacecraft, orbit or route, but the ability to access, control and use space – and to deter adversaries – that they provide.”
Cislunar space is the vast region where the gravity of both the Earth and the moon shapes how spacecraft move. Compared with satellites orbiting relatively close to Earth, vehicles there can follow far more complex paths under the pull of both bodies.


As modern warfare increasingly depends on space-based capabilities, a conflict on Earth could extend into this region as countries seek to protect their own assets while denying an adversary the freedom to operate there.
Research into how such confrontations might play out is still in its infancy, according to the Chinese team. Previous studies have examined only a limited range of locations and scenarios, leaving more complex forms of conflict largely unexplored.
The authors sought to fill some of those gaps by grouping possible cislunar conflicts into six types, including pursuit and evasion, attack and defence, blockade and counter-blockade, and deception and identification.
The scenarios range from encounters between individual spacecraft to contests over entire regions. In one, decoys, fake manoeuvres or misleading information could deceive an opponent, causing it to waste fuel, reveal its intentions or miss a chance to act.
But reality would be far messier, the researchers cautioned. The models often assume spacecraft can be reliably tracked and each side knows what the other wants – assumptions unlikely to hold in such a vast, difficult-to-monitor environment.
Future research will therefore need to examine how decisions are made when information is missing or delayed.
In a real confrontation, the researchers said, the contest may ultimately be as much about misleading an adversary and seeing through its deception as manoeuvring spacecraft through space.


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Study models how geopolitical tension could extend into orbit with rival spacecraft dogfighting, evading each other or blocking strategic routes


Study models how geopolitical tension could extend into orbit with rival spacecraft dogfighting, evading each other or blocking strategic routes.


War on Earth could spill over to the moon, Chinese space scientists warn

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Study models how geopolitical tension could extend into orbit with rival spacecraft dogfighting, evading each other or blocking strategic routes

Study models how geopolitical tension could extend into orbit with rival spacecraft dogfighting, evading each other or blocking strategic routes