U.S. Spy Satellites Buzz Chinese Spacecraft
China's newest geostationary additions have drawn over two American spies.
During April, two American spy satellites maneuvered their way toward three Chinese spacecraft out in geostationary orbit, with their mission near the spacecraft unknown.
The satellites approached are TJSW-15, launched March 9th, TJSW-16, launched March 29th, and TJSW-17, launched April 10th. Each of the satellites is described as being used for communications, radio, television, and data transmission, as well as testing and verification for multi-band high-speed throughput communications technologies.
The three satellites were approached in two events by the U.S. spacecraft. The first of two events was seen on April 8th, with USA-271 slowly creeping toward TJSW-15.
Via COMSPOC: TJS-15, a Chinese satellite, has continued to maintain its position on the GEO belt. Current Orbital Elements (Epoch: 04/08/2025 14:00:00): S.M.A 42167.44 km, ecc 0.000199, inc 0.2103°, RAAN 100.99°, ArgPer 59.20°, True Anom -23.14°, period 1436.24 min. Location: 90.29 °E, drifting 0.014 °/day westwards. Also in the neighborhood is USA 271 who has been drifting eastwards since before TJS-15 launched. Provided no further maneuvers occur, these two could make a close approach of ~33 km on April 8 22:17:51 UTC.
Just over three weeks later, on April 29th, the second encounter was observed, this time with USA-324 whipping past TJSW-16 and TJSW-17 at a close distance.
Via COMSPOC: Over the weekend, USA 324, maneuvered into the 152 °E neighborhood—“checking out” its new neighbors TJS-16 and TJS-17. USA 324 made two close passes— ~17 km to TJS-16 (26 Apr 14:45 UTC) and ~12 km to TJS-17 (29 Apr 13:40 UTC)— before settling down near 152.8 °E.
While the reason why USA-271 and USA-324 are buzzing the three TJSW satellites isn’t known, their overall mission is. The two USA spacecraft are part of the U.S. Space Force’s Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program, designed to spy on other satellites in space via the use of electro-optical sensors.
Having been in orbit for around one month at most, the three TJSW-15, TJSW-16, and TJSW-17 are still in their commissioning phase, undergoing final tests before entering operation. Once in operation, they will provide the services mentioned earlier. What the U.S. Space Force possibly hopes to learn from the commissioning phase for the satellites is confusing, but USA-271 and USA-324 may have opted to image the three spacecraft instead. Moving closer to a target spacecraft would allow for clearer images.
Update: Based on the position of the sun during US-324’s passes of TJSW-16 and TJSW-17, it is likely that the spacecraft was imaging the two satellites while flying nearby.
Coincidentally, or deliberately, these close maneuvers come just weeks after the U.S. Space Force claimed, on some lackluster evidence, that Chinese satellites were “dogfighting” in space. The accused “dogfighters” were said to be Shiyan-24C-01/02/03 and Shijian-6-05A/B, in sun-synchronous orbit. Which is an increasingly busy part of space, especially when polar or high-inclination satellites pass by, requiring maneuvers to avoid potential collisions. Additionally, while the two satellites were preparing to buzz the Chinese satellites, the Chief of Space Operations at the U.S. Space Force, General Chance Saltzman, shared that the U.S. is considering ways to deny or disable Chinese spacecraft in orbit.
The maneuvers performed by the U.S. would not be notable, usually, as every highly competent space-faring nation has demonstrated the ability for proximity operations. But the U.S. has repeatedly cried foul when a Chinese satellite moves anywhere near American satellites. All of this while the most militarised and aggressive country seeks to expand its fleet of orbital military assets from whoever can provide them.
Videos originally from COMSPOC on Twitter, videos from Tweets cloned to YouTube for archival.