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18h ago

U.S. Confirms It Has Weapons Deployed in Orbit

U.S. officials said the public disclosure is meant to deter China and Russia and comes as the Pentagon advances plans to demonstrate space‑based interceptors by 2028.

Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink at the United States Air Force Academy Graduation Ceremony at Falcon Stadium, Colorado Springs, May 28, 2026. (AP Photo by Matt Rourke, Pool)
While the US shied away from giving out much details about its weapon in the space and its capabilities, the country's space force did mention that it was capable of defending US forces against "hostile adversary action".
A government rendering of the Golden Dome missile defense system
The US has announced it has weapons in space for the first time. The dangers of orbital conflict include risking vital communication and commercial satellites (Photo: Encyclopaedia Britannica/Getty Images)

Overview

  • Air Force Secretary Troy Meink said at the Air, Space and Cyber Conference on Monday that the United States now has “on‑orbit space control weapons” capable of defending the joint force against hostile action.
  • Officials have not disclosed what the systems are, how many are in orbit, when they were deployed, or whether they are kinetic or non‑kinetic, leaving core capabilities ambiguous.
  • The Space Force described the weapons as usable for offensive and defensive space control, a framing Meink and other officials presented as a deliberate deterrent to Chinese and Russian counterspace activity.
  • Experts warn that any kinetic use of on‑orbit weapons could produce long‑lived debris that would threaten civilian and military satellites and could escalate conflicts that disrupt services like GPS, communications and weather forecasting.
  • The announcement ties to broader U.S. plans for a space layer of missile defense, with the Space‑Based Interceptor effort slated for an initial integrated demonstration with President Donald Trump’s Golden Dome program in 2028, and it sits inside the legal space left by the 1967 Outer Space Treaty.