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U.S. Confirms It Has Deployed Weapons in Space

newsSep 15, 20265991

Air Force Secretary Troy Meink publicly confirmed that the United States has active "on-orbit, space-control weapons" deployed and circling the globe, saying the systems exist to "meet the challenges of evolving threats wherever they exist." A U.S. Space Force spokesperson said space control can include "employing kinetic and non-kinetic means to affect adversary capabilities" and that these capabilities can be used for offensive and defensive purposes; Meink declined to provide specifics. China’s foreign ministry said Washington was "preparing for war in outer space" and warned against turning space into a battlefield, while Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov called for the "complete demilitarisation of space" and said space "must be free of any weapon." Analysts and space experts quoted in reporting said the public confirmation could accelerate a high-risk arms race in Earth orbit; astronomer Jonathan McDowell suggested jammers are a reasonable guess given prior secret payloads, and Victoria Samson of the Secure World Foundation said the admission virtually guarantees comparable deployments by China and Russia. Reporting noted the 1967 Outer Space Treaty bans weapons of mass destruction in orbit but does not bar conventional weapons, and commentators warned that naming these capabilities for the first time ends decades of strategic ambiguity and may prompt near-term responses from rival powers.

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