Real war in space may be closer than you think

Cover image of "Phantom Orbit," a novel about real war in space

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

A real war in space might already have broken out in the skies above Ukraine. In Low Earth Orbit (LEO) a thousand miles up, some 4,000 Space X Starlink satellites share space with the International Space Station and the Hubble Telescope. As we learned in 2022, Ukraine’s armed forces depended on Starlink for communications in the field—and recent news reports suggest Russia may be blocking its signals to Ukrainian drones. But a greater threat lies 11,000 miles above the Earth in Medium Earth Orbit (MEO). There, thirty-one GPS satellites circle the Earth twice a day, beaming precise information about time and location to hundreds of thousands of US and allied military users, including air traffic control, cell phone networks, and disaster relief services. Disrupting GPS could be catastrophic. Sometime spy novelist David Ignatius brings this threat to life in his latest thriller, Phantom Orbit.

A grim warning to the CIA

Ignatius’ novel opens as a Russian scientist, Ivan Volkov, secretly sends a message to the CIA with compelling information about this threat. “You are blind to the danger from above,” he writes. “Satellites are your enemies, especially your own. You have 16 ground monitors and 11 antennas to run your global navigation system. Do you trust it? That is only the beginning. Hidden codes can seem to make time stop and turn north into south. They will freeze your world and everything in it. Warning messages may be tricks. Beware.” But Langley ignores Volkov’s warning. So, he turns instead to contacting Edith Ryan, a young American he knew when both were graduate students at Tsinghua University in Beijing. He was convinced then she was an officer of the CIA and hopes she’ll get the message.

Phantom Orbit by David Ignatius (2024) 384 pages ★★★★★

Image of a GPS satellite, part of a system at the heart of this novel about real war in space — *One of the third-generation GPS satellites first launched in 2018, an integral element in essential military and civilian electronic systems worldwide. Image: AF.Mil*

Three satellite specialists are central characters

In fact, when she and Ivan Volkov were falling in love in Beijing, Ryan had been only a candidate for the Agency. But she had since enlisted and eventually risen to a senior post in the Directorate of Science and Technology, where she had become a specialist in satellites. And, working independently, she has uncovered troubling information about work underway in China that could threaten the GPS system in just the way Volkov fears. Ryan has learned that Chen Cao, a shadowy Chinese adviser to the Central Military Commission, is chairing a “special committee” that is obviously working to exploit the vulnerabilities in US satellites. And we soon learn that Chen Cao had singled out Ivan Volkov for special attention in Beijing, making multiple attempts to recruit him for China.

These three characters—Ivan Volkov, Edith Ryan, and Chen Cao—will hold our attention to the end through the twists and turns of this fascinating story.

A terrifying threat, credibly explained

Writing in the Washington Post this week, Alma Katsu notes, “Phantom Orbit draws back the curtain and shows how the deliberatively murky world of intelligence and espionage really works.” And she should know. Katsu is a former CIA officer and herself an accomplished spy novelist (Red Widow, Red London). But the novel also reveals a great deal about how much our society depends on the GPS system and how vulnerable we all are to anything that might disrupt it.

Phantom Orbit is full of technical detail Ignatius obviously gleaned from his innumerable contacts in the US defense establishment. (He names many in his acknowledgements.) Another, less skillful writer might have slowed this story to a crawl while explaining the detail. But Ignatius moves the plot along smartly. Katsu questions whether the novel should be called a thriller. But I don’t. The threat Ignatius highlights in Phantom Orbit is so terrifying that fear drives the story along at a breakneck pace.

About the author

Photo of David Ignatius, author of this novel about real war in space — *David Ignatius in 2018 at the National Book Festival. Image: Wikipedia*

David Ignatius writes a twice-a-week foreign affairs column for The Washington Post and is the author of twelve spy novels. After ten years as a reporter at the Wall Street Journal, he moved to the Post, where he has worked since 1986. He has received numerous awards for his journalism.

Ignatius was born in 1950 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His father was a former Secretary of the Navy and President of the Washington Post. He is of Armenian descent on his father’s side. Ignatius grew up in Washington, DC, and studied political theory at Harvard College and economics at Kings College, Cambridge. He lives in Washington with his wife and their three daughters.

For a review by former CIA field officer Alma Katsu, see “David Ignatius’s ‘Phantom Orbit’ is a twisty, believable spy novel” (Washington Post, May 14, 2024).

I’ve read and enjoyed four of David Ignatius’ eleven other spy novels: