Editor’s Note: The U.S.-China competition encompasses many domains, including space. George Washington University’s Aaron Bateman, drawing on a longer article in International Security, argues that the United States maintains an advantage in this race. Many space capabilities depend on ground facilities, and Bateman argues that the U.S. network of allies and partners, including their overseas territories, offers a global infrastructure that China currently lacks.

Daniel Byman

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China’s rapidly expanding military space program has generated significant anxiety in the United States and allied countries. In the event of a conflict over Taiwan, Beijing’s space systems would play a critical role in tracking and targeting U.S. and allied forces in the Indo-Pacific. Similarly, the United States depends heavily on satellites for communications and enabling precision strikes, among other functions. As such, the intense focus on security dynamics in orbit is warranted. But it has obfuscated the critical role that terrestrial infrastructure plays in enabling U.S. and Chinese space operations. Both countries depend on facilities spread across the globe for tracking, commanding, and surveilling satellites as they orbit the earth. Access to overseas real estate for hosting this space infrastructure has become a vital element of U.S.-China space competition.

Orbital mechanics is the most important factor in selecting locations for space facilities because they must be in view of satellites as they pass overhead. But it is not the only factor. The political alignment and stability of the host country also matter. Harmonizing the constraints of orbital mechanics with the desire to base these sites on politically reliable territory is challenging. In the Cold War, the United States relied on allies, especially Australia and British overseas territories, to host satellite tracking and surveillance facilities. The use of allied real estate was a key factor in the United States fielding global space infrastructure that was more capable than its Soviet counterpart.

Today, the United States retains this infrastructural advantage in great-power space competition. Many of Washington’s allies around the globe permit U.S. space infrastructure on their territories. In contrast, Beijing relies on economic inducements and scientific cooperation to secure access to foreign land because it lacks allies. This strategy has been successful to a degree, allowing China to expand its space infrastructure across the world. But the lessons of the Cold War suggest that relying on non-treaty allies is a tenuous solution.

Coaling Stations of the Space Age

At the dawn of the space age, satellites quickly became critical tools of U.S. national security. Rather than reducing U.S. dependency on overseas territories, the arrival of the space age made real estate abroad even more vital. In the 1950s, the United States began constructing a global network of facilities to track and communicate with its military, civilian, and intelligence satellites. Some of these same locations were used to monitor Soviet satellites as well. Soon, Department of Defense and NASA sites were operating in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Oceania. Like coaling stations for warships, these small installations around the world were critical for projecting power through space.

Nevertheless, relying on foreign territory generated risks for U.S. space operations. In 1960, the U.S. Air Force and NASA established tracking stations in South Africa, an advantageous place for monitoring satellites launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida. But securing access to this location came at a high cost. In exchange for South African real estate, U.S. policymakers had to strengthen their ties with the pariah South African regime that clung to its racist apartheid policy, creating a liability for U.S. foreign policy.

More than a thousand miles to the east, in Zanzibar, revolution uprooted a NASA tracking station on the island in 1963. Shortly after securing its independence from Britain, the new regime expelled the United States. This situation led U.S. policymakers to conclude that the United States should focus on securing access to territories that would remain under the control of treaty allies. Britain and Australia were both identified as essential, the former because of its overseas territories and the latter due to its large landmass in the Southern Hemisphere.

Leveraging Allies in the Cold War

Leveraging allied territories created new complexities for U.S. foreign policy. Washington decried imperialism but also helped Britain hold on to its crumbling empire in the Indian Ocean, in part, to ensure its access to the Seychelles and Diego Garcia. Britain allowed U.S. space facilities in both locations. However, the Union Flag was no guarantee of security. In 1976, the Seychelles gained independence, prompting the United States to shift some of its space operations to Diego Garcia.

Today, Diego Garcia is still under the Union Flag, but its future is not quite as certain. This year, Britain transferred sovereignty of Diego Garcia to Mauritius. As part of the process, the two countries struck an agreement that keeps the U.S.-U.K. base on the atoll for 99 years. Whether the long tail of colonialism proves to be a liability for the longevity of U.S. space infrastructure on the island remains to be seen.

To maintain contact with its satellites in a polar orbit, in 1961 the U.S. Air Force built a tracking station at Thule Air Base in Greenland, a Danish territory. This facility was especially important for the nascent U.S. satellite reconnaissance program. The Ballistic Missile Early Warning Station at Thule also tracked satellites in addition to its primary role of detecting a ballistic missile attack against North America. Both the tracking station and early warning radar remain critical elements of the U.S. Department of Defense’s global space infrastructure. Moreover, the U.S. space facilities in Greenland create an important linkage between space and Arctic security.

The United States turned to its Australian ally to meet its space tracking needs in the Southern Hemisphere. In the Cold War, Australia was home to the highest concentration of U.S. space infrastructure. But difficulties arose when the United States constructed two defense-related space bases in the outback in the late 1960s. One of them, Nurrungar, was a ground station that received data from U.S. nuclear early warning satellites watching for Soviet and Chinese missile attacks. Even before it came online, some Australian politicians alleged that the sites violated Australia’s sovereignty, leading to a crisis in the alliance in the early 1970s. Ultimately, the situation settled, but Washington remained anxious through the end of the Cold War that domestic Australian politics could once again become a liability.

Despite these complexities, space infrastructure on allied territory was a source of comparative advantage for the United States in the Cold War. The United States had a more technologically advanced and geographically diverse suite of sensors for surveilling satellites in multiple orbits. This infrastructure would have helped NATO gain the upper hand in a conflict with the Warsaw Pact that extended into space, which thankfully never came to pass. In contrast, the Kremlin struggled to construct a global network of similar facilities due to constraints on its access to overseas territory.

Terrestrial Space Real Estate Today

Access to overseas real estate has become a critical element of the intensifying U.S.-China competition in orbit. Both the United States and China are expanding their terrestrial infrastructures for surveilling space systems. Ground-based sensors complement space-based U.S. and Chinese systems for monitoring satellites. For real estate abroad, Washington is doubling down on its Cold War-era strategy of leveraging allies, while Beijing is using economic incentives and scientific cooperation to secure permission to construct space installations on foreign territories. The lessons of the Cold War suggest that the United States retains an advantage because it is using treaty allies to host these facilities.

Space infrastructure is part of the fabric of U.S. alliances with multiple states. As such, the expulsion of these facilities is an unlikely prospect. Today, the United States is expanding its space surveillance infrastructure in both Australia and Britain that will greatly aid U.S. and allied efforts to monitor satellites, especially those in higher orbits. Other treaty allies, including Germany, France, and Japan, are also fielding their own ground-based surveillance capabilities that provide space domain awareness data to the United States and other allies. In an Indo-Pacific security contingency, terrestrial space infrastructure in other regions will play a vital role in monitoring adversary actions in the space domain. For all these reasons, alliances are critical for U.S. space power.

China’s efforts to expand its space infrastructure look considerably different. Aside from North Korea, China lacks treaty allies and must use other incentives to make inroads into states with real estate in desirable locations for satellite tracking and surveillance. Since the physical hardware is dual-use, China frequently emphasizes the scientific and civilian purposes of its space infrastructure, distracting attention away from military applications. The Espacio Lejano station in Argentina is a case in point. While Beijing insists that the facility supports peaceful space activities, it may also be used to support military and intelligence activities.

China currently has access to at least 18 overseas space facilities in Africa, Antarctica, Latin America, South Asia, and the South Pacific. There is no evidence to suggest that any of these countries might expel China’s space tracking and surveillance stations anytime soon. But the longevity of these sites is more precarious than those of the United States. Changing political conditions and concern that these sites may play a role in a conflict involving the United States could undermine China’s ability to maintain key parts of its overseas space tracking network.

Such a situation has already occurred. In 2020, Beijing lost a space tracking station in Australia that had been in place for more than 10 years. In 2024, New Zealand’s intelligence services reported that proposals by a foreign entity to install ostensibly civilian satellite ground stations in New Zealand had been rejected upon discovery that they would have a secret military purpose. Wellington did not specifically identify China, but having space infrastructure on the small island nation would buttress Beijing’s Southern Hemispheric satellite tracking and surveillance capabilities. In 2025, the Czech government used a 2021 law on preventing high-risk foreign investment to block China’s construction of a satellite ground station in the Czech Republic.

To fill gaps in its network, Beijing has fielded a small fleet of satellite tracking vessels. The upshot of these sea-based platforms is that there is no threat of expulsion. The downside is that they cannot fully replace facilities on land, and they are large, slow targets. Moreover, they are expensive to maintain and require port access abroad.

The relative advantages of U.S. terrestrial space infrastructure should not lead American officials to become complacent. U.S. Space Force leaders have consistently underscored that satellite ground stations are vulnerable to cyberattacks. More investment in the security of U.S. space facilities in the United States and abroad is therefore warranted. Nevertheless, U.S. space infrastructure is on far more politically secure ground than China’s, which is a critical factor in the United States retaining its competitive edge in the space domain.