Earlier this month, China said it would develop new ground stations in Antarctica to support its satellite activity and data collection as concerns grow over Beijing’s surveillance programs and growing security threats targeting the US. USA
A subsidiary of China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC), China Space News, said the defense contractor won a bid of 43.95 million yuan ($6.52 million) to build a ground-based system of ocean observation satellites.
The impending increase in China’s satellite capabilities prompted immediate concern about Beijing’s surveillance programs and how this Antarctic development could enhance the expansion of its data collection capabilities.
But the new facilities to be developed at the existing Zhongshan research base in East Antarctica have one expert concerned for other reasons.
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The Shenzhou-13 manned spacecraft, atop a Long March-2F carrier rocket, is launched from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China’s Gobi desert on October 16, 2021. (Chinatopix Via AP)
Rick Fisher, a senior fellow at the International Center for Assessment and Strategy, told Fox News Digital that there has been worrying activity at the Zhongshan base for years.
The Chinese base, opened in 1989, was built for research related to marine, glaciological, geological and atmospheric sciences. But, by 2021, under the guise of civilian investigation, China allegedly started employing advanced military capabilities, according to the Chinese military expert.
“In 2021, state media revealed that China had placed LIDAR, a laser radar, at the Zhongshan station to conduct ‘atmospheric research,'” Fisher told Fox News Digital. “Any type of laser raises the possibility that lidar could be upgraded to be a much more powerful laser.”
Fisher explained that using a more powerful laser from the Zhongshan base will allow China to damage or destroy selected satellites.
The technology used to damage a satellite could also break pieces of the device and increase the amount of debris in low-Earth orbit that could further damage existing satellites.
The Zhongshan research base was built in accordance with the 1959 international Antarctic Treaty that says the world’s southernmost continent is to be used strictly for peaceful scientific research and prohibits any military maneuvers, an agreement that China, along with 51 other nations , Have signed. .
China’s research icebreaker Xuelong arrives at the roadstead in front of Zhongshan Station in Antarctica on December 1, 2018. The research team carried out the unloading work using a helicopter. (Xinhua/Liu Shiping via Getty Images)
The United States and its military have been supporting research missions in Antarctica for nearly seven decades, but Fisher says there’s a big difference.
“The United States, Germany, Norway, perhaps other countries also had space probe facilities in Antarctica. However, none of them are developing Fractional Orbital Bombardment Systems (FOBS), like China,” he said.
FOBS date back to a Cold War-era missile program that sought to circumvent early US warning detection systems by dropping a nuclear warhead from the south on South America instead of the west on Russia. .
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According to Fisher, the program became obsolete with the development of deep-space early-warning detectors, but the expert cautioned that China revived this technology and tested its FOBS capabilities twice in 2021.
“If you’re going to attack the United States that way, going through Antarctica, it’s extremely useful to have the ability to upgrade a FOBS bus,” he said, referring to technology that would launch a nuclear or hypersonic warhead. missile.
A photo taken on February 9, 2019 shows a main building of Zhongshan Station, a Chinese research base in Antarctica. (Xinhua/via Getty Images)
This would ensure “that the bus that would launch these weapons has the most accurate guidance upgrades and can achieve the highest precision in attacking targets in the United States,” Fisher added.
Few details have been released about the new ground stations to be developed at China’s Antarctic base, but Beijing’s military influence over its space program has raised widespread concern about its space ambitions.
“The Zhongshan base is becoming … a surveillance site from which to better target US satellites. It is a base that … will be able to guide new Chinese space weapons to US targets,” Fisher said.
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“And because it’s at the South Pole, it can play a bigger role in helping China populate the Moon,” he added, referring to a new space race that could be unfolding.
Neither the State Department nor the Pentagon responded to Fox News Digital.
