US has deployed a space weapon, air force secretary says

The US has confirmed it deployed a space weapon in Earth's orbit, the first time it has acknowledged such offensive capabilities.

US Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink said the "on orbit" weapon was necessary to safeguard US forces against hostile enemy action.

Speaking at the Air, Space and Cyber Conference on Monday, Meink said the US was ready for "evolving threats", but did not elaborate on the weapon's capabilities or when it was put into orbit.

Senior military leaders have previously said they planned to boost military capabilities in space, citing Russian and Chinese programmes developing ways to attack and disrupt US satellites in a future conflict.

China responded on Tuesday by warning against an "arms race" in space.

"We urge the US side to stop expanding its military capabilities and preparing for war in outer space," AFP quoted a foreign ministry spokesman as saying.

Details of how the weapon operates have not been disclosed by US officials.

A US Space Force spokesperson said: "Space control encapsulates the mission areas required to contest and control the space domain – employing kinetic and non-kinetic means to affect adversary capabilities through disruption, degradation and even destruction, if necessary.

"These capabilities can be employed for offensive and defensive purposes at the direction of combatant commands."

An expert on military uses of outer space noted that "precious little" was publicly known about the technology, and told the BBC there could be a "whole range of different weapons systems".

Speaking to Radio 4's Today programme, Dr Bleddyn Bowen, from the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), said he was "totally guessing" but that the US could have been referring to "some kind electronic warfare or radio jamming platform".

That would be the sort of weapon that already exists on Earth and could disrupt radio communications, Bowen said.

An alternative would be "a kinetic kill vehicle of some sort - so a vehicle that would release a projectile of some sort that would ram into a satellite and destroy it".

But this was less likely because such a physically destructive tool would be capable of creating a lot of debris, Bowen added.