Space Threat Assessment 2021

The purpose of this annual report from the CSIS Aerospace Security Project is to aggregate and analyze publicly available information on the counterspace capabilities of other nations, primarily China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and India. It is intended to raise awareness and understanding of the threats, debunk myths and misinformation, and highlight areas in which senior leaders and policymakers should pay more attention. This year’s report focuses on the changes in counterspace capabilities and new developments that have occurred or come to light over the past year. A more complete history of counterspace developments can be found on the new CSIS space threat interactive timeline, available at: https://aerospace.csis.org/counterspace-timeline/. This online tool will be updated periodically throughout the year and allows users to easily navigate through the large body of publicly available information on space threats, sorting by country, type of threat, and year.

This report and the interactive tool are not a comprehensive assessment of all counterspace activities because much of the information on what other countries are doing is not publicly available. The information in this report is current as of March 12, 2021.