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United States Space The Military

America Acknowledges for the First Time: It Has Deployed Weapons In Space (npr.org) 159

Posted by EditorDavid from the star-wars dept.
Tuesday U.S. Space Force chief Douglas Schiess said his branch of the U.S. military operates "on-orbit weapons," reports Reuters, to defend "against space-enabled attacks." He promised "disciplined and responsible choices" when scaling America's orbital defense arsenal in the coming years.

NPR calls this week's reveleations "remarkable... after previous warnings about countries such as Russia possibly weaponizing a global frontier long agreed in treaties to be used for only peaceful purposes." The revelation comes as the Trump administration puts a growing focus on space. In 2019, during his first term, Trump created the Space Force as a separate military branch. In his second term, he has announced the "Golden Dome" missile defense system, which includes plans to put U.S. weapons in space. Trump said last year that he expected the system would be "fully operational before the end of my term," which ends in January 2029, and have the capability of intercepting missiles "even if they are launched from space." Trump also has directed the Pentagon to pursue the space-based interceptors, in an executive order during the first week of his presidency. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that just the space-based components of the Golden Dome could cost as much as $542 billion over the next 20 years.

The Biden administration announced in 2024 that Russia was developing a space-based nuclear weapon that could loiter in space for long durations, then release a burst that would take out satellites around it. That kicked off a renewed debate on the idea of weapons in space at the United Nations. In April 2024, Russia vetoed a joint U.S.-Japanese resolution that would have called on all countries not to develop or deploy nuclear arms or other weapons of mass destruction in space, as banned under a 1967 international treaty that included the U.S. and Russia... The Russian delegation called the resolution hypocritical and a double standard and instead proposed a rival resolution to ban all weapons in space "for all time." It ultimately failed. Russia had argued that the United States and its allies opposed a ban on all weapons in outer space because they planned to deploy weapons there.
Reuters calls this "a landmark moment in space militarization," while noting that it's "aimed at deterring what U.S. officials describe as aggressive orbital activities from China and Russia, officials and analysts said." The remarks this week by Washington's top military-space officials are part of "the increasing comfort level of the U.S. government to speak about aggressive actions in space" that has been building up in recent years, said Victoria Samson, chief director of space security and stability at the nonprofit Secure World Foundation. "We've gone from not talking about counter-space capabilities... to now saying flat-out we have weapons in space," Samson said. "The pendulum keeps on shifting over that way..."

"The acknowledgment of these space-control capabilities is fundamental to ensuring that we prevent deterrence from failing, and that we are postured and ready should deterrence fail to employ them effectively," Richard Palmer, the director of the Capability and Resource Integration Directorate at U.S. Space Command, said on Tuesday.... "The bottom line is that our joint force and our allied forces require space. Our economies require space," added Palmer. "We are ready in the U.S. to preserve that."
Reuters adds that Russia's Foreign Ministry issued criticism of America's move, saying "In pursuit of its narrow self-interests, Washington is ready to completely ignore the catastrophic consequences for humanity of any armed conflict in orbit."

America Acknowledges for the First Time: It Has Deployed Weapons In Space More | Reply

America Acknowledges for the First Time: It Has Deployed Weapons In Space

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  • Coming soon to an orbit near you (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Waffle Iron ( 339739 ) on Friday September 18, 2026 @01:44AM (#66341986)

    A space weapons arms race plus one million data center satellites.

    What could possibly go wrong?

    • Re:Coming soon to an orbit near you (Score:4, Insightful)

      by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Friday September 18, 2026 @03:30AM (#66342082)

      Data center satellites will not be happening, same as Mars colonies. Or at least not in the next 50 years or so and by then the human race will be in a fight for survival against climate change and have other priorities.

      These two things are just hallucinations of the Space Nazi on drugs, who has no clue how Physics works despite supposedly having a Physics BA. I guess he bought that one and never actually studied the Science.

      • Re:Coming soon to an orbit near you (Score:4, Informative)

        by Errol backfiring ( 1280012 ) on Friday September 18, 2026 @07:37AM (#66342238) Journal
        This XKCD video [youtu.be] about heat and space is probably applicable to space data centers as well.

        • I think it misses an important point about the seals. The seals are designed to work with a higher pressure outside the sub. With a pressure differential in the opposite direction, I suspect that they might leak a lot.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gweihir ( 88907 )

          Nice! I did no know Munroe made videos.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by rsilvergun ( 571051 )
        It's not even hallucinations it's pump and dump it's all just a scam to loot our 401ks.

        Go to YouTube and look up Patrick Boyle and SpaceX. The entire thing is a scam. There is no path to profitability except through taking your retirement savings. The whole system is designed to force you to invest in a company that cannot possibly be profitable enough to pay back the investors except for the people at the very top who have been structured to make sure they get out with lots of your money.

      • Or at least not in the next 50 years or so and by then the human race will be in a fight for survival against climate change and have other priorities.

        I like your optimism but don't share it. I think even 30 years may be a tad optimistic.

      • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

        by Khyber ( 864651 )

        "Data center satellites will not be happening, same as Mars colonies."

        You're too late, one is in orbit and I'm making an even bigger one right now.

        Go figure, someone with heavy thermal regulation experience in semiconductor technology is what's needed to properly cool high-tech in space and make what everyone says is impossible into reality.

        And I do it with only a GED.

        Sit down.

      • Space data centers currently exist. But, they aren't used like terrestrial data centers. They're used for processing surveillance data at the point of observation. They're the equivalent of Flock cameras that are running machine learning models to detect anomalies, only when an anomaly is detected does it send the data to a ground based data center. That allows them to hunt for missiles and stealth planes optically from multiple points to develop a 3D mapping from optical video feeds. Starlink and Starshiel

    • Re: Coming soon to an orbit near you (Score:5, Insightful)

      by fluffernutter ( 1411889 ) on Friday September 18, 2026 @03:41AM (#66342098)
      Not to mention the dumbest people on the face of the earth in charge of it all.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Mr. Dollar Ton ( 5495648 )

      What will happen? The same that happened to the Soviet Union when it wasn't able to raise the money to compete, a collapse.

      Except this time around it will be the orange shitgibbon's territory that'll fail, because:

      https://www.goodreads.com/book... [goodreads.com]

    • A space weapons arms race plus one million data center satellites.

      What could possibly go wrong?

      Kessler knows we won’t get to a million before the inevitable happens.

      Threatening to blow shit up isn’t a defense. Because blowing shit up in any orbit, is so self-defeating a child could see it.

      • Then again, after a Kessler event, first the lost resources need to be replaced, even marginally, so that life is not too unbearable /s. Then the debris cleanup must begin. It will have to be done.

        Then whoever gets up there first will mostly win. And I would put good money on knowing who gets up there first, unless the NWO offs them and destroys their industrial advantage.

        And I want MY nation to be the winner. Obviously. Your wishing me and my nation ill is only 'me win' in disguise.

    • May AI will acquire control of the orbital weapons and use them to kill all humans!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tarlus ( 1000874 )

      The race is literally escalating.

  • Why does anyone take this seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Cyberpunk Reality ( 4231325 ) on Friday September 18, 2026 @02:09AM (#66342006)

    The current United States government says a lot of things, many of which are decoupled from reality. This statement was very likely issued solely because the occupant of the White House wanted to hear it. This "admission" or "acknowledgement" has no zero relevance to the question of whether or not the United States actually has on-orbit weapons.

    • It's nice to see people who get it.

    • Re:Why does anyone take this seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Friday September 18, 2026 @04:31AM (#66342130) Homepage Journal

      Does it matter of it's true or not? Other countries will take it as licence to deploy their own weapons, or to paint the US as the bad guy.

      • Assuming other countries haven't already deployed space weapons. We know Russia has military jamming satellites in very high orbit. I've always assumed that there have been some kind of satellite in orbit that can be weaponized, even if it's a regular military communications satellite that just happens to have some extra maneuvering fuel and a couple of extra thrusters that can be rammed into other satellites.

      • "Oh no they're going to do it now" Really? That's the best you've got?

        So you're going to pretend you don't know about Soviet weapons deployed in space basically as long as either of us has been alive?

        Or are we pretending there's no Chinese space weapons program?

        How naive are you, or just disingenuous?

        • How naive are you, or just disingenuous?

          He's an anti-American Euro-nationalist, he cares if his agit-prop is true about as much as the US President.

      • or to paint the US as the bad guy.

        Ummm, that nuke has sailed.

      • 1) Openly, this gets others competing rather than secretly doing things - it's cheaper and easier to openly to this shit than to have to hide it.
        2) nukes from space cuts response time in half; missile detection is even more difficult. Now you have a few minutes to respond... not that the default auto global suicide gets changed in the approx 6 minutes while they rush to move the president to a bunker; who likely doesn't make it.
        3) accidents with nuclear materials in space = huge problem for centuries
        4) end

    • Ronald Reagan was talking openly about weapons in space and there were acknowledged government programs on the topic. Back then. Ronald. Frikkin. Reagan. Before Trump. Before Obama. Before Bush. Both of them. Before Clinton. The government was openly active in this area a long long llloooonnnggggggggggg time ago. This stuff was happening during the Cold War. This is not new.

  • Skynet (Score:5, Interesting)

    by markdavis ( 642305 ) on Friday September 18, 2026 @02:14AM (#66342008)

    >"Russia's Foreign Ministry issued criticism of America's move, saying "In pursuit of its narrow self-interests, Washington is ready to completely ignore the catastrophic consequences for humanity of any armed conflict in orbit."

    Yeah, I don't think we care much about Russia's take on this. They have little to no moral high ground when it comes to "humanity" and "armed conflict". And China has been, no doubt, moving forward steadily with weapons in space.

    Anyway, killer space satellites and sentient AI possibly coming... has there ever been a more clear indication of Sykynet?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    • Re: Skynet (Score:2, Informative)

      by flyingfsck ( 986395 )
      The CCCP (essentially Russia plus Ukraine) used to put 20 mm aircraft guns in their Salyut and Mir space stations. So there has been weapons in space for a long time.

      • The USSR had 15 members. From memory: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan.

  • This shouldn't surprise no-one (Score:3)

    by chthon ( 580889 ) on Friday September 18, 2026 @03:18AM (#66342062) Journal

    In 1979, I already read a, for that time, very complete article about the possible weapons in space. Most of the theory was worked out. No way that the DoD would have sat for forty years on its ass doing nothing.

    • It doesn't surprise anyone, you can already see this forum is full of the usual suspects spouting their long-established stances.

  • I guess people who believe in magical "weapons free" incantations will work down here, also believe those incantations will work for ... most of the universe?
  • Blowing up the other guys satellites sounds like a great way to disable ours from the debris field. Everyone was angry with China and Russia when they destroyed one of their satellites causing debris clouds. I hope our guys are smarter and have figured out how to disable without creating debris. Like engulf them in sticky black goo that is radio opaque. It would blind any sensors and cut off communications. It would be a kind of stealth attack because it would be hard to know the cause of failure. The attac

    • Blowing up the other guys satellites sounds like a great way to disable ours from the debris field. Everyone was angry with China and Russia when they destroyed one of their satellites causing debris clouds. I hope our guys are smarter and have figured out how to disable without creating debris. Like engulf them in sticky black goo that is radio opaque. It would blind any sensors and cut off communications. It would be a kind of stealth attack because it would be hard to know the cause of failure. The attacking satellite would have to use stealth technology to avoid tracking so we could sneak up on their satellites. Just curious who controls the satellite tracking network?

      In all honesty, if there's any truth to it, it's most likely a return to the old "mutually assured destruction" thing. Where the threat isn't so much that we'll take out the enemy. It's that if the enemy gets too big for their britches, we'll take out everybody, including ourselves. Hurrah for tribalistic bullshit on a grander scale. God damn we're a dumbass species.

  • Russia and China were both already confirmed to have anti-satellite weapons in orbit and have tested them. I checked the chronology. They did it first and the US is simply responding.
  • Maybe it us just me; but it seems that if one wanted to steal a nuclear weapon, one based in space would be one of the easier targets for any nation with space faring capabilities.
    • Easier to disable, harder to steal, I'd think. How would you get and maintain control of it vs just pushing it into the cosmos to never be seen again?

    • It's just you. You can't hide the approach and all superpowers have weapons which can hit a satellite, or a spacecraft.

  • This nation is literally founded on breaking treaties: We broke (again, literally) every single treaty we ever signed with a group of natives, no matter the size.

    No one should be even slightly surprised when we break one.

    • This nation is literally founded on breaking treaties: We broke (again, literally) every single treaty we ever signed with a group of natives, no matter the size.

      No one should be even slightly surprised when we break one.

      Well, (unfortunately) all countries weasel out of treaty obligations from time to time during their history.
      But they generally try to hide the fact, or react defensively, or with embarrassment if accused of it.

      The current US leadership lies, breaks promises, has no morals, and is not ashamed of it.

  • Did anyone ensure comms to this satellite are encrypted? Any security audits done, or were they just giddy to get a weapon into space? Seems like a golden hacking target.
  • Just think about what's going on today that you won't hear anything about until 50 years from now.
  • We are breaking the rules because everyone else is an arsehole.

    In that case, the treaty is pointless and non-existent, so the USA shoulld denounce the treaty and officially withdraw.

  • "Someone" in the government was showing off and said something they shouldn't to whomever who didn't have clearance. As a preventative measure the higher ups spilled the beans so no one would get in trouble.

    You know, like on The West Wing Season 4, Episode 21, "Life on Mars". The episode where the Vice President resigns.

  • yay.. one more time the USA is unilaterally jeopardizing the entire world...

    If they could be trusted, that's one thing... but they can't and have proven so repeatedly in the last decade.

    For anyone saying- but someone else has done it... what's your point? it's almost as if breaking a treaty should have consequences... not a green light for everyone to do it.

  • Like Musk to put a 'high tech' huge rock * in space to drop. * Called the moon- I know rocks can be an effective weapon in a gravity well.
  • I would like to think the Pentagon knows how to play the game of Poker. I would say yes we have spy and encrypted communication satellites, so do several other countries. I do not believe the USA has Kinetic, LASER, or MASER based weapons in orbit. I believe this is what you call in the game of Poker, a bluff.

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