America Admits It Has Space Weapons, Raising Suspicions It Shot Down Chinese Satellite

The veil of secrecy surrounding America’s space weapons program has been dropped with the admission that the country possesses an operational orbital weapons platform.Air Force Secretary Troy Meink made the unexpected announcement on Monday. “The United States now has, on orbit, space-control weapons, capable of defending the joint force against hostile adversaries,” Mr. Meink told an Air, Space, Cyber conference.Experts have questioned the timing of the announcement and linked it to a Chinese satellite that broke apart early this month several hundreds of miles above the Earth.The Chinese Yaogan-50 reconnaissance satellite had likely shared targeting imagery with Iran. The exact cause of the satellite’s destruction has not been publicly disclosed. “America may have shot down China’s satellite,” author and China researcher Gordon Chang wrote on X. The break-up of the satellite and the disclosure of American orbital weapons comes amid new reporting that China and Iran are colluding to target American military facilities in the Middle East. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that China is believed to have provided Iran with high-resolution satellite imagery of American bases and naval movements. That includes satellite photos of the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan. Iranian missiles hit that base in mid-July and killed three United States service members.The admission by Mr. Meink that America possesses a space weapon elicited furious responses from China and Russia. The two countries are believed to possess space weapons themselves, and India may as well.China’s Foreign Ministry did not address the fate of the Chinese satellite Tuesday, but denounced the United States.“China stands for peaceful use of the outer space and keeping it safe, and opposes any arms race in outer space or any attempt to weaponize it and turn it into a warzone,” the Foreign Ministry spokesman, Guo Jiakun, said. “We urge the US to stop its military build-up in the outer space, and uphold global strategic stability with concrete actions.”China has a far from pristine record on developing its own space-based weapons.“Intelligence suggests the People’s Liberation Army likely sees counterspace operations as means to deter and counter US military intervention in a regional conflict,” the United States Space Force said in July. “It is actively developing and fielding a wide range of counterspace capabilities.”In 2007, Chinese forces used an anti-satellite missile fired from the ground to destroy an antiquated weather satellite. The Chinese have an unmanned space plane — the Shenlong, or “divine dragon” — that has completed three space flights in low Earth orbit. It was launched again in February and remains in Earth orbit after more than 200 days. Its payload is unclear. Also unclear is the purpose of numerous smaller objects the Shenlong has deployed while in space.“The People’s Liberation Army expects space to play an important role in future conflicts by enabling long-range precision strikes and denying other militaries the use of space-based information,” the Space Force wrote.Mr. Meink’s speech cast space-based weapons in a larger category of military technology improvements he says will lead to “a radically different looking Air Force by 2032.” He mentioned progress on the proposed Golden Dome missile defense shield and the Space Data Network.Mr. Meink suggested his disclosure was not random; rather that it was “very well thought out.”“It is critically important that we maintain our dominance not only in the air but in space,” Mr. Meink said. “And so that we’ve had to take steps to make sure that when we’re threatened, we can take care of that.”The 1967 Outer Space Treaty — to which the United States is a signatory — bans nuclear weapons in Earth orbit, but does not ban conventional weapons.

America Admits It Has Space Weapons, Raising Suspicions It Shot Down Chinese Satellite

America Admits It Has Space Weapons, Raising Suspicions It Shot Down Chinese Satellite

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