US military confirms it has deployed weapons in space
The United States has deployed weapons in space and will use them to defend American forces, Air Force Secretary Troy Meink said Monday – the first public acknowledgment of such capabilities in orbit and a deliberate signal to those that pose potential threats in the domain.
“China develops and operates space and counterspace capabilities as part of a military modernization strategy,” the US Space Force says on its website, while “Russia views space as a warfighting domain and believes space supremacy will be a decisive factor in future conflicts.”
US military officials have repeatedly warned the two countries are testing new offensive space capabilities, citing examples such as Russian satellite constellation training missions that Washington says could demonstrate “attack and defend tactics” for future combat and China’s development of a nuclear capable partial-orbit hypersonic missile.
https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/15/science/us-space-force-weapons-capabilities-hnkOpen linkView original on lemmy.world
66 replies
Predictably disappointing, the Outer Space Treaty was too vague and toothless as a cornerstone of space legislation.
I don't think it matters how specific or what the consequences of violating it would be, I think humankind would be bound to violate the treaty eventually. Either to maintain their superiority or fear of another nation having superiority over them.
Next time you wanna write something both boring and bleak, go ahead and say it to somebody else.
Next time you wanna post something and not have your perspective challenged in any meaningful way, go ahead and post it somewhere else
You haven't done that, you just said "obviously bad stuff is for sure" and ran a victory lap. Give me a fucking break
outer space treaty is about nuclear weapons
Exactly. It was not adequately expansive in my opinion
i doubt that anyone in usaf cares about your opinion
Like I'm serious, actually think about what you wanted from this conversation. I don't want an answer, I just want you to do that thinking on your own.
Why are you talking to me?
So we're just gonna accept instant Kessler syndrome on the opening of a war between two space powers? Cool. Coolcoolcool. Love this.
I don’t think we’re necessarily talking about kinetic weapons here, something like GPS or Starlink equivalent jamming could be equally devastating.
Rods. tungsten rods.
rod from god
That's just the beginning of the New Testament
More like the big bang!
Jesus!
I wonder how many high-speed ball bearings you'd have to launch to start a chain reaction?
Probably a lot. I don't think we have enough stuff up there yet to actually trigger a Kessler cascade.
Luckily musk and bezos are deploying more and more every day
I think it'll be a net positive
The one place capitalism couldn’t taint, has been tainted by capitalism…
Weapons in space.
No universal healthcare.
Massive wealth disparity only getting worse.
Women losing rights.
Democracy threatened.
Inflation.
Student debt epidemic.
Poison food.
Resurging racism.
Climate change.
Coooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool.
Yep. And a new marble helipad. So at least there's that.
"Good evening, I'm Jess Perkins with Casey Wong. Top story: Santa Barbara. 10,000 acres of wooded residential land were scorched in an instant when a laser cannon aboard the Strategic Defense Peace Platform misfired today during routine startup tests. Casey?"
"Yes, it was a day of mourning for the families of 113 known dead at this hour. Among them: two former United States presidents who had retired in the Santa Barbara area. A day of mourning for a country."
When reality has shifted so much 40-year-old satire sounds like reality.
And we're believing anything this administration claims?
Does this at least mean we can work with China again for space stuff? Wasn't the whole rationale for NOT working with them on ISS etc that they were deploying weapons in space, or is this one of those predictable "rules for thee and not for me" scenarios?
China is just a boogeyman always referenced whenever the government is manufacturing consent from the masses. For example: for the last decade they’ve been referencing chinas mass surveillance as a reason for Americans to be afraid of china because they are not a free country. Now it’s flipping and the story is that china is using bots to make American’s think data centers are bad.
Time china mass surveillance 2019
China fueling data center rage
Probably the latter. But it's just tit for that basically. China is a pro at making agreements, then breaking them. For instance they fish other countries waters illegally because they've already overfished and destroyed their ecosystem. They just turn their transponders off. They draw their countries borders with a crayon as well.
Who's worse? That's tough, even as a US citizen I'll tell you we're hypocritical as hell. I think Americans have a lot more country pride than most others, and it's usually looked at as arrigance.
So...space lasers?
Space guns.
Pylons would be the most damaging of anything but would take a lot to get the coverage you would need enough to cause any real threat... idono
The death star
Really annoying how certain media outlets treat every single thing the US military says as fact without independently verifying it themselves
I don't believe you.
(meta joke, just being silly. I do agree with you)
Kessler syndrome, here we come.
What weapons, has this been interdependently verified? Doesn't seem either is known by this article so for now just take it with a grain of salt.
Big grain of salt.
Russia and China have kept to kinetic test attacks, and I can only assume the US would do the same. For years everyone sent cameras up and brought them down to develop the film. I would guess that sending a remote-triggered rifle with a few rounds has happened since the 60s.
Don't have to be complicated to work.
I mean, it’s not like a bunch of Starlink satellites couldn’t be a weapon if you really wanted them to be. Adjust course just enough and boom, no more target.
Starlink satellites are in LEO, and in order to hit anything in a higher orbit, would need way too much delta-V for the amount of propellant that they carry. Otherwise you'd need to be very lucky to have one within striking distance when a launched object crosses the LEO boundary.
I think they mean ground targets, deorbit and slap whatever you want. They'd probably burn up and disintegrate before hitting the ground though.
You ain’t wrong, but, y’know, read all of my post there.
And my response still stands. Adjustments that can be made with on-board propellant, for ANY satellite, is far smaller than you seem to think. There's a lot of room out there around Earth for orbits, and only so many that are actually under US government control. A laser (or particle beam weapon) would be able to extend a satellite's reach far better, and generates less debris that would cause more problems down the line.
Right, and I never disagreed with you in the first place, as proven:
Also,
So are you just talking to talk...?
Ah. It seemed that you were implying that we don't need more weapons in space because a satellite can be a weapon with the right mindset.
I think instead you are saying that of course the United States has weapons in orbit, a satellite can be a weapon already?
Yeah, basically.
It doesnt have to me a gun or missile to be a weapon, starlink massively invades privacy, is used for survalience, and used to deny certain countries access to information while sharing it with others.
I think they use starlink to help coordinate airstrikes just because they are like 90% of the satelites in space.
They are also just cluster up the sky to the point its going to become increasingly hard to launch more and more satellites in space.
Was bound to happen. Honestly surprised it took this long.
Aww, was hoping for some broad strokes. If I had to guess, they focus on anti-satellite arms. Small missile launchers and lasers come to mind. (lasers work significantly better in space, though getting the power and cooling for them is much harder)
Edit: I just remembered a notable part of Golden Dome is to have ballistic missile protection in the mid-course phase, which necessitates the interceptors loitering in space.
americans also demoed neutral hydrogen beam weapon a couple years back, hard to say what came out of this
this is what was shown back then:
Just in time for the end of the world. Trump is an enemy of not just America but of humanity.
The US deployed weapons in space decades ago.
I was wondering who tf actually thought this was news.
So if you carry a US smartphone, you can be targeted from space.
Yeah fucking starlink
It's worthless. What are you gonna do throw solar panels?
You don't need anything near that destructive. Even tiny grains intercepting other satellites at orbital speed will destroy them.
And the concept (hopefully just a concept) of Rods from God is terrifying.
it's worse than that, it's fucking stupid
If you want to know what's terrifying it's that Musk has the technology and capability to make it a reality today. The Starship rocker could deliver the rods to orbit and the fins and targeting systems used by the boosters for their landings could ensure they hit 'close enough' to their intended targets.
I mean put a 100lb tungsten rod in 1,000 satellites and they wouldn't do "much" but surely they'd hit whatever they hit at a velocity that I cant see anyone countering shy of being in bunkers.
Not so much a matter of if as when. Sure, small things traveling quickly can do a lot of damage, but getting them to move quickly either takes a lot of force or a lot of time. Weapons generally aren’t things you want to wait weeks or months to see a result from firing at your target for.
All the other signs of the end times were a misdirect and this is how it’s actually gonna end? I’ll admit, this is a nice twist, I think this reality’s writers got their groove back.
Star Wars I guess
Yup. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Defense_Initiative