
Between 2019 and 2021, China doubled its number of satellites in orbit from some 250 to 499, while Russia increased its number of orbiting satellites from about 150 in 2019 to 169 last year after a slight dip in 2020, according to a new, unclassified Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report, Challenges to Security in Space: Space Reliance in an Era of Competition and Expansion. The DIA study is a follow-on to an agency study in 2019 of the same topic.…