The Biden administration, citing intelligence data, confirmed that the Russian Federation is still creating anti-satellite weapons – although so far they are “not active and do not pose an immediate threat.”
John Kirby, the president’s national security adviser, noted that the administration had been monitoring events for a week but planned to keep the information secret, while media reports “put pressure” on the White House to release the intelligence.
At the same time, Kirby added that although the technology has not yet been deployed and is inactive, Russia’s desire to create anti-satellite weapons is “concerning.” According to some publications, the weapon allegedly runs on nuclear energy, but Kirby did not confirm (but did not deny) this information.
As SpaceNews notes, nuclear-powered satellites have been used by both the United States and Russia for decades. The technology involves using a nuclear reactor to generate electricity to power on-board systems and electronic weapons. According to some reports, Russian anti-satellite weapons are planning to use such electronic weapons as a “jammer” to disrupt the operation of other satellites.
“People seem to confuse nuclear weapons and satellites with nuclear power,” said defense analyst Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
Harrison says the use of nuclear weapons in space is a clear violation of the Outer Space Treaty, signed back in 1967 by, among others, the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union. Now countries seem to continue to adhere to this agreement, so as not to create “a real mess that affects all satellites indiscriminately.”
“We know this because the US detonated a 1.4 megaton nuclear bomb at an altitude of 400 km in 1962. It charged the Van Allen radiation belts and destroyed approximately one-third of satellites in low Earth orbit, including the first UK satellite,” says Harrison.
For decades, Russia (and other countries) have been developing weapons that can destroy satellites in low Earth orbit:
Meanwhile, the United States on Wednesday launched six military satellites on a SpaceX rocket, part of a new generation of spacecraft designed to track hypersonic missiles launched by China or the Russian Federation, and possibly new missile threats from Iran or North Korea, which are also developing their own hypersonic weapons .
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