CSIS Space Threat Assessment 2025

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket carrying Boeing’s Crew Space Transportation-100 Starliner spacecraft launches from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, June 5, 2024. (U.S. Space Force photo by Joshua Conti)

By Clayton Swope, Kari A. Bingen, Makena Young and Kendra LaFave • Apr 27, 2025

This resource for policymakers and the public leverages open-source information to assess key developments in foreign counterspace weapons. Drawing on eight years of collected data and analyses, this series describes trends in the development, testing, and use of counterspace weapons and enables readers to develop a deeper understanding of threats to U.S. national security interests in space.

Since the publication of the 2024 Space Threat Assessment, there have been few headline-grabbing counterspace developments. No nation was known to have tested or used kinetic anti-satellite missiles, commonly called direct ascent anti-satellite (DA ASAT) weapons. There was no public indication that any nation tested or used counterspace weapons such as laser dazzlers or directed energy weapons. While Russia’s pursuit of a nuclear anti-satellite capability topped the news last year, no information has publicly surfaced revealing how close Russia might be to launching this system, though the United States and its international partners remain concerned that Russia could decide to deploy such a weapon.

But a closer look reveals that the past year, from the perspective of counter – space developments, has been anything but uneventful. Rather than entirely new developments, the past year mostly witnessed a continuation of the worrisome trends discussed in prior reports, notably widespread jamming and spoofing of GPS signals in and around conflict zones, including near and in Russia and throughout the Middle East. Chinese and Russian satellites in both low Earth orbit (LEO) and geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) continue to display more and more advanced maneuvering capabilities, demonstrating operator proficiency and tactics, techniques, and procedures that can be used for space warfighting and alarming U.S. and allied officials. Finally, U.S. companies providing a commercial space service to government users, particularly defense and military ones, remain squarely in the crosshairs of nation states, with Russia in particular vocal about its intention to consider commercial assets used by the U.S. military as legitimate targets.