As space becomes more crowded, more commercial and more consequential, the world has entered a new space race — and it bears little resemblance to the last one, industry leaders say.

The US Space Force’s “Resilient GPS” program could have dramatically strengthened GPS reliability—at the same moment adversaries like China have sought to undermine it.

The Space Force pressed ahead with R-GPS using the funding it had, even after Congress declined to approve the additional $77 million. A year later, the dynamic has reversed: the Space Force says it ...