14 DAY TRIAL // China's shootdown of an old communication satellite two months ago using a new missile was the first successful demonstration of an anti-satellite missile by any country in more than 20 years.
The U.S. perceived the test not only as a proof of China's increasing military capabilities and ambitions, but also as a possible threat to its dominance in military space.
US intelligence knew about preparations for January's test in China of an anti-satellite weapon but the US government chose not to intervene because of insufficient leverage with Beijing, The New York Times reported on its website Sunday.
China never officially explained the military action and a large field of debris remains in orbit because of the satellite's destruction.
Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, questioned Chinese officials during a visit there last month, but said he received no explanation about why they conducted the test that destroyed the weather satellite.
Now, Air Force Gen. T. Michael "Buzz" Moseley ordered the wide-ranging review of all military satellites (spy satellites most probably included), prompting the concern that the Asian nation may be creating anti-satellite weaponry to use against other nations' space operations.
"What I'm looking for is just a better way to think through the challenge, now that other people have a capability to kill a satellite," Moseley said of the review. "It is a contested domain now. I've asked a bit of an open-ended question."
Moseley has asked for initial results by June and has said changes would become a necessity if the study's findings are troubling.
"You have a choice: You can either defend the machines or you build something that flies higher and faster," he said of the nation's satellites.
However, he didn't mention anything about the fact that the US will deploy anti-satellite weapons of their own, relying on signal interference - telemetry - rather than lasers, missiles or space mines that would be easily detected and could start an arms race in space or even a spatial cold war.