By Cassell Bryan-Low
PARIS, Sept 15 (Reuters) - The U.S. Air Force chief's acknowledgment this week that the Pentagon has weapons in orbit is a "landmark" moment in the rising militarization of space aimed at deterring aggression against Washington's allies and economic interests, a U.S. official said.
U.S. Air Force Secretary Troy Meink said at a conference near Washington, D.C. on Monday that Washington "has on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the Joint Force against hostile adversary
action," the strongest admission yet by a Pentagon official of U.S. weapons in space amid rising space tensions with Russia and China.
"The acknowledgment of these space-control capabilities is fundamental to ensuring that we prevent deterrence from failing, and that we are postured and ready should deterrence fail to employ them effectively," Richard Palmer, the director of the Capability and Resource Integration Directorate at U.S. Space Command, said on Tuesday.
Speaking at a space defence conference hosted by consulting firm Novaspace in Paris, Palmer added that there are “some actors across the globe who are very much interested in undermining the collective interests of the countries and allies gathered here in this audience and across Europe and the rest of the world.” He declined to discuss the nature or capability of those weapons.
"The bottom line is that our joint force and our allied forces require space. Our economies require space,” added Palmer. “We are ready in the U.S. to preserve that."
PREPARING FOR WAR IN SPACE
The Air Force secretary's comment underscores how the world’s major space powers are preparing for the prospect of conflict extending into space. Satellites have become indispensable to modern warfare, as conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East have demonstrated.
For decades they have provided communications, navigation and intelligence services to armed forces on Earth, and once placed in orbit typically remained on fixed paths. Increasingly, however, militaries view them as active weapons platforms capable of launching attacks by disrupting a satellite’s operations through jamming or laser dazzling, or even capturing enemy spacecraft.
The head of U.S. Space Command has warned that adversaries are developing capabilities to deny the United States access to key systems and reduce military effectiveness, and that adversaries would likely seek to target U.S. space assets early in a conflict. He has argued that the U.S. must adopt a more active warfighting posture, including calling for orbital interceptors and other weapons.
Some other countries are also looking to develop counter-space weapons. That includes Germany, which has a €35-billion ($40-billion) military space spending plan aimed at countering growing threats from adversaries.
Major General Michael Traut, the head of German Space Command, has previously said that as part of that plan, Germany will channel funding into intelligence‑gathering satellites, sensors and systems designed to disrupt adversary spacecraft. Traut said Germany would not field destructive weapons in orbit that could generate debris, but said a range of non-kinetic options existed to disrupt hostile satellites, including jamming, lasers and actions against ground control stations.
The U.S. recently conducted a major orbital exercise designed to demonstrate dynamic space operations, involving satellites in multiple orbits simultaneously plus participation from international and commercial partners. Called Apollo Maneuvers, it marked the largest such exercise conducted by U.S. Space Command both in the number of spacecraft involved and the type of maneuvers performed, a U.S. Space Command spokesperson said.
(Reporting by Cassell Bryan-Low in Paris; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Rod Nickel)
