The United States has officially acknowledged for the first time that the U.S. Space Force has deployed weapons in orbit around Earth, without disclosing details about their nature or when they were deployed.
The disclosure by U.S. Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink marks a new stage in the militarization of space, as the United States, China and Russia continue to develop capabilities aimed at targeting space-based systems.
First official reference to orbital weapons
Meink said the United States has “space control weapons on orbit” while speaking at the Air and Space Cyber Conference. He did not specify what the arsenal includes or when the systems became operational.
U.S. officials have declined to provide further details, saying that disclosing the capabilities of the weapons could reveal sensitive information about the Space Force’s operational capabilities.
Juliana Suess, a space security expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, said the reference could cover a broad range of capabilities.
From jamming to satellite destruction
Space-control weapons can include systems capable of causing temporary or reversible disruption, such as interference with communications, as well as capabilities that could have permanent and destructive effects.
The key distinction is that the system is already located in space. It is not an earth-based missile capable of striking a satellite in orbit, but a weapon that has itself been deployed in space.
The U.S. disclosure is significant because Washington has previously avoided officially confirming that it had operational weapons deployed in orbit.
