US orbital weapon most likely a jammer, but analysts see riskier options

Russia could launch nuclear weapons into space, Thornton tells BBC

Military analysts told the BBC the United States’ newly disclosed orbital weapon is most likely a radio-jamming platform, though more disruptive and riskier alternatives remain possible. Dr Rod Thornton of King’s College London said Russia could launch nuclear weapons into space as a last resort to disable unhardened satellites across a wide expanse.

Analysts told the BBC that what kind of weaponry the US has now placed in orbit — and the broader anti-satellite capabilities Russia and China have developed — will shape how great-power competition plays out in space. Russia and China have developed comparable capabilities, including ground-based missiles, hunter-killer satellites and, in Moscow’s case, a nuclear option that could disable satellites over a wide area.

The disclosure came from Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink, who said the “on orbit” weapon was necessary to safeguard US forces against hostile enemy action. Meink gave no details about the weapon’s capabilities or when it was placed in orbit.

Advanced militaries already deploy satellites in space for a range of purposes, from supplying secure communications to reconnaissance, providing precise location information for targeted strikes, and detecting missile launches. As warfare has become more technologically advanced, analysts expect military hardware in space to play a growing role.

Dr Bleddyn Bowen, an associate fellow in military sciences at the Royal United Services Institute and associate professor in astropolitics at Durham University, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that he could only hazard a guess about the weapon’s nature. “I would expect there to be some kind of electronic warfare or radio-jamming platform, possibly, this would be a non-destructive kind of anti-satellite weapon,” Bowen said.

Bowen noted that comparable systems already operate on Earth and can disrupt satellite communications. “If you take out the radio links then your satellite is very useless,” he said.

Bowen also would not rule out more disruptive and riskier weaponry, which could create a lot of debris and destruction. “Less likely would be a kinetic kill vehicle of some sort, so a vehicle that would release a projectile of some sort that could ram into a satellite and destroy it,” he said. “Possibly some sort of close inspection and grappling satellite would be another possibility as well.”

While the weapon placed in orbit appears to be a first, the US — and its Russian and Chinese rivals — have had weapons that can be pointed and shot into space for some time.

Over the past decade, Russia and China have carried out far more manoeuvres in space, known as rendezvous and proximity operations, or RPOs — “buzzing” Western satellites. “Theoretically, these RPO sats can become hunter-killer satellites by physically colliding with them or by nudging them out of orbit,” Thornton, a reader in Russian Defence and Security Studies at King’s College London, told the BBC.

Bowen said China has demonstrated “space tug capability,” describing it as a vehicle that “can go up to a satellite, can grapple it and move it into a different orbit.” That capability, he said, can be either a positive development — a way of removing space junk — or a means of knocking out working satellites.

Thornton said what Russia lacks in space weaponry and satellites, it makes up for in missile capability. “The Russians… have ground-based missiles which can be launched into space to strike sats in low Earth orbit. They also have ASAT missiles that can be launched from a great height by aircraft,” he said. “From the Russian point of view they see Nato as having much better and more sats than the Russian military can call up, therefore they have invested heavily in ASATs in order to ‘level the battlefield’ somewhat.”

Thornton added the nuclear dimension. “As a last resort, the Russians can also launch nuclear weapons into space and the EPM blast would ‘fry’ any unhardened sats over a wide expanse,” he said.

Thornton said that, having so few satellites, Russia would be the “big winner” in any space war, which he said would involve “missiles fired up into space, manoeuvring sats designed to nudge/destroy them and ground-based lasers.”