World
The United States admitted it maintains weapons systems in orbit
The confirmation was made by Air Force Secretary Troy Meink at a conference in Maryland. China and Russia questioned the deployment and called for avoiding further militarization of space.
The United States publicly acknowledged for the first time that it has “space control” weapons systems deployed in orbit. The confirmation was made by Air Force Secretary Troy Meink during the Air, Space and Cyber conference held in Maryland.
According to the official, those systems are intended to defend the Joint Force against hostile actions by adversaries. No information was provided on what type of weaponry was deployed, how many systems are operational or since when they have been in orbit.
According to BAE Negocios, the Department of the Air Force indicated that this was the first public acknowledgment of that deployment by a U.S. official. That outlet also noted that, according to an official definition, “space control” includes missions to contest and dominate that domain through kinetic and non-kinetic means, with offensive or defensive uses.
The announcement came amid the advance of other Washington military projects linked to space, including orbit-based interceptors and a constellation of satellites to detect and track moving targets. BAE Negocios added that Meink anticipated launches of that constellation will begin this month, although without linking those systems to the weapons already deployed.
The official explanation placed this decision in the context of the space and counterspace capabilities developed by China and Russia. In recent decades, those two countries, along with the United States and India, have advanced systems capable of affecting satellites used for communications, navigation and surveillance.
Washington’s admission prompted reactions from Beijing and Moscow. The spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry, Guo Jiakun, urged the United States to stop expanding its military capabilities aimed at a possible war in space. From Russia, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov said space must remain free of weapons and defended international agreements aimed at preventing an escalation beyond Earth.
The international legal framework does not generally prohibit conventional weapons in space. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty does prohibit placing nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction in orbit. According to BAE Negocios, space law specialist Laetitia Cesari said there is a regulatory gap because that rule does not comprehensively ban other military capabilities.
BAE Negocios also reported that military analyst Song Zhongping considered the existence of these systems had long been “an open secret.”
Sources
About this note. Written by El Notero with the assistance of artificial intelligence, based on what was published by the cited outlet. El Notero did not conduct its own reporting on this event.
