Let's turn now to rising anxieties over a new arms
race in space.
Courtney Kuby has rare access inside an Alabama facility on
the front lines guarding the US against threats from China
in orbit,
growing tensions between the US and China now extending to
hundreds of miles above the Earth.
We know and we're threatened.
We need to be able to counter the threat.
To get an inside look at some of the latest
American technology.
To counter the Chinese threat,
we went to United Launch Alliances factory in Alabama,
working on defenses against things like Chinese satellites that can
use robotic arms to drag other satellites out of orbit,
meaning China could disable critical American communication satellites.
They were actually able to grapple,
grab a hold of one of their defunct GPS or
beta satellites.
What is the concern about them having that kind of
capability in space?
Anything that can interact with the spacecraft
for servicing is inherently capable of interacting with the spacecraft
to harm it or to gather intelligence from it.
And fears tonight that China is moving faster than the
US in this new space race,
including not just in space but the skies just above
us not only using satellites but spy balloons and hypersonic
missiles.
When you look at the threat from China and space
right now,
what concerns you the most?
We seem to be asleep at the switch.
Dean Chang is an expert on China's space program,
which is more than doubled in the past five years.
Do you think that China
militarily is ahead of the US in space?
I think the Chinese one are giving us a real
good run for the money,
he says. Another potential Chinese threat to the US from
space includes a cyber attack that allows China to remotely
take control of an American satellite.
You could say to the satellite deorbit
come crashing down there goes a billion dollar payload
crash into the Pacific
or disrupt American missile defense systems.
The really scary one, of course,
is if you could spoof missile early warning systems
so that they don't report a missile launch.
That's the ultimate night, U.S.
officials tell NBC News. China can already do both,
and China successfully launched its own refueler a few weeks
ago,
which enables China to keep its satellites in orbit longer.
In the meantime, the US may still be months away
from the same technology and multiple U.S.
military officials tell us Perhaps most concerning,
China launched A hypersonic missile capable of orbiting the globe
over and over,
then suddenly dropping to Earth before most missile defense systems
can respond.
We continue to look at that very closely,
but that's a capability they just recently demonstrated a possible
defense lasers.
You can't outmaneuver the speed of light.
Laser Courtney. Some pretty disturbing scenarios laid out there.
Another sign of the state of relations with China.
We've learned the military hotline that President Biden touted nearly
a month ago is still not up and running.
Yeah, Lester. Despite the agreement between President Biden and President
Xi to restore military communications,
U.S. officials say they are trying to set up the
lines,
but the Chinese have not been responsive.