US Confirms It Has Deployed a Weapon in Orbit for the First Time
US confirms for first time it has deployed space weapons
The US has publicly acknowledged placing an offensive weapon in Earth's orbit for the first time. Air Force Secretary Troy Meink said the "on orbit" system is needed to protect US forces from hostile action, but gave no details on its capabilities or deployment date. China warned against an arms race in space. Experts say little is publicly known about the technology, which could range from electronic jamming to a kinetic kill vehicle.
Space control encapsulates the mission areas required to contest and control the space domain – employing kinetic and non-kinetic means to affect adversary capabilities through disruption, degradation and even destruction, if necessary.
- jonkoops
Space really should be a neutral ground like Antarctica. Especially since the consequences of space debris might trigger the Kessler effect [1], denying humanity future access to low-earth orbit for the considerable future.
- hereme888
The part where China "begs" the US not to weaponize space, and then talks of how China wants to militarily dominate space... Such typical tactics to delay US progress.
- Lammy
Relevant:
- USAF Directed Energy Directorate home page during the years 1999–2006: https://web.archive.org/web/20060831035044/http://www.de.afr...
- USAF Directed Energy Directorate home page during the years 2009–2016: https://web.archive.org/web/20160428181404/http://www.kirtla...
- LASER Effects Test Facility fact sheet from 2002 showing a 50-kilowatt CO² LASER setting a test target on fire: https://web.archive.org/web/20070315131556/http://www.de.afr...
- andai
>"We urge the US side to stop expanding its military capabilities and preparing for war in outer space," AFP quoted a foreign ministry spokesman as saying.
I'm no geopolitics whiz but "we urge the USA to be unprepared for war" is a pretty comical statement to me.
- asdff
Wasn't the shuttle originally planned to be a weapon as well, capable of intercepting and sabotaging satellites using its loading bay workshop? There are also the various "mini shuttles" the three letter agencies fly around the earth for several hundred day stints of doing who knows what exactly with who knows what capabilities (other than having a similar sabotage potential as the original shuttle perhaps).
- sgustard
Reagan and Gorbachev came within inches of abolishing nuclear weapons, but the sticking point was the US would not back away from building space weapons. As long as warmongers are in control we will continue to live in danger and fear.
- nopassrecover
Rather interesting timing after the US accused China of supplying Iran with high-res imagery used to support attacks on US bases, then a Chinese satellite mysteriously broke apart
- WillAdams
C.J. Cherryh has a memorable quote on this in her _Downbelow Station_.
>They were armed, the swift exploration ships, as they had always been, venturing as they did into the unknown; but now they were used in a new way, to visit stations and pull them into line. That was bitterest of all, that the crews of the probe ships, who had been the heroes of the Beyond, became the Company enforcers.
- misetech
I think most of the powerful countries in the world already have space weapons. Space exploration is just a facade for this.
- causal
Man I imagine within the first few minutes of a hot war LEO and geostationary would just light up with assets pointed at one another. I know we will have bigger problems at that point in time but I hope we are at least trying to developed weaponry that doesn't Kessler-ify all of space for the next thousand years.