The U.S. has weapons orbiting Earth that can be used to defend American forces from attacks in space, the Air Force secretary revealed this week in a rare public acknowledgment of capabilities the Pentagon has largely kept secret.
Air Force Secretary Troy Meink said Monday that the Space Force now has “on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the joint force against hostile adversary action,” but declined to say what the weapons are, how they work or when they were deployed.
The carefully worded disclosure marks a shift in how openly the U.S. military talks about weapons in orbit as China and Russia develop their own capabilities to disrupt, disable or destroy satellites.
“Is there any question in the room, by anybody, about whether or not the Chinese or Russians have been developing these sorts of weapons?” Meink told reporters after his remarks at the Air & Space Forces Association’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference in National Harbor, Maryland — right outside of Washington, D.C.
“For over a decade, we’ve been talking about the fact, and we have expressed concern, that the Chinese and Russians were developing weapons for space,” he continued. “We need to focus on making sure we can protect ourselves operating in that environment.”
Exactly what the U.S. has put into orbit remains a mystery.
The U.S. has previously discussed placing weapons in space, including plans to deploy space-based interceptors capable of destroying incoming missiles as part of President Donald Trump’s Golden Dome missile defense system.
But Meink’s disclosure goes a step further: The Space Force already has weapons in orbit for “space control,” a mission aimed at protecting U.S. access to space and, if necessary, denying an adversary the ability to use it.
The Pentagon has historically revealed little about the weapons developed for that mission, with publicly known U.S. counter-space capabilities largely based on the ground.
The United States military has weapons in space and will use them to defend its forces,
