China tops US in defense-related satellites orbited in 2022: Report

While the US led the world in the total number of space launches in 2022 with China coming in second, a new report calls China the winner for the most defense-related payloads. “China is replacing Russia as the No. 2 space power,” Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard and Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., and author of the “Space Activities in 2022” report [PDF], told Breaking Defense Thursday. McDowell is also the author of the online newsletter “Jonathan’s Space Report,” which chronicles worldwide space launches. More

(Source: https://breakingdefense.com/2023/01/china-tops-us-in-defense-related-satellites-orbited-in-2022-report/ - Jan 7)