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The US military has announced that it reportedly has weapons stationed in Earth’s orbit, under the first public acknowledgment of its kind by a major military nation.
US Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink made the comments during an Air, Space and Cyber Conference held earlier this week.
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“Today, we continue to ensure we remain ready to meet the challenges of evolving threats wherever they exist. This is why the United States now has on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the Joint Force against hostile adversary action,” Meink said.
The international community has previously been wary of the weaponisation of space, despite forecast efforts by major military nations such as the People’s Republic of China, Russia, and the US to maintain the space “high-ground” advantage during space-based weaponry.
Space-based anti-satellite systems could likely utilise techniques such as radio-frequency jammers, directed energy, lasers, chemical sprayers, net or grappling equipment, microwave devices, or good old-fashioned kinetic impact or kinetic kill vehicles.
Grappling satellites are nothing new in the aerospace technology industry. A Chinese Shijian-21 space debris mitigation satellite rendezvoused and docked with a non-operational Chinese Beidou-2 G2 navigation satellite in December 2021. The Shijian-21 then towed the weather satellite out of its geostationary orbit and released it into a disposal orbit, according to tracking data from the US Space Force’s 18th Space Control Squadron.
Dr Malcolm Davis, senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, has previously indicated that the rise of the US Space Force was a direct indication of the weaponisation of space.
“Space Force is a direct response to the growing Russian and Chinese anti-satellite and anti-space capabilities, particularly anti-satellite missile systems as displayed by the Chinese in 2007,” he said previously.
“The decision to combine the space capabilities across the various branches into a standalone branch of the US Armed Forces, which is equal to branches like the US Navy or US Air Force, is an important step forward and highlights how important the US considers the space domain.
“What we see under both the Obama and Trump administrations is a focus on deterrence in space that is focused on system resilience, diversity and augmentation as opposed to the purely offensive militarisation of space. Simply put, the days of Star Wars or ‘rods from god’ are gone, at least from the American perspective.”
It is as-yet unclear what kinds of systems the US has placed in orbit and their capabilities. However, the development of international technology designed to disable or destroy satellites has long been forecast by defence experts, due to satellites making up a significant source of GPS, intelligence and imagery.
For more defence and national security news and insights, visit Defence Connect. For more space news and insights, visit Space Connect.
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