In space warfare, the U.S. military is seeking the ultimate high ground.
The satellites central to national defense and global communications have long faced threats from the ground, such as signal jamming and missile attacks. Orbital menaces are the next frontier.
Intelligence disclosures about Russia’s interest in antisatellite weapons and satellite launches from China have energized U.S. efforts to defend its interests hundreds and even thousands of miles above the Earth’s surface.
Defense companies are developing systems ranging from satellites that can chase other satellites in orbit to protecting ground stations that can beam signals to space. Those protections are critical as mobile navigation services and some television and internet services rely on equipment in orbit. Commercial startups are working on technologies, including orbital capsules, sensors and satellite structures, that could have military applications.
Pentagon officials are also doing something unusual: talking more publicly about the weapons that hostile nations might use in space to engage in warfare. Gen. Chance Saltzman, the Space Force’s top operational leader, said adversaries are trying every day to restrict access that the U.S. and its allies have in space. . . .
The Space Force—the newest military branch—has stepped up training of its Guardians, including how to best maneuver U.S. satellites and predict what adversaries may be planning.
It has developed scenarios for countering lasers, jammers, grabbers and nuclear weapons being used in space. U.S. officials oppose placing its nuclear weapons in orbit, pointing to commitments under a decades-old space treaty, but the Pentagon has been looking to further deploy its own set of space-based arms and capabilities.
In the Space Force’s recent budget request, about 25% of the $29.4 billion funding would go toward so-called space superiority, a concept that Saltzman calls “responsible counter-space.”
To be fair, the United States has been working on this stuff for a long time. For an elderly but excellent history of the early days, see Paul B. Stares’ The Militarization of Space: U.S. Policy, 1945-1984. It’s quite impressive what was going on in the 1960s — operational satellite interceptors, AGENA drones tested for capturing enemy satellites, etc.