Air Force Secretary Confirms US 'On-Orbit' Space Weapons — SkimNews
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- Troy Meink publicly confirmed in a Monday speech at the Air, Space, Cyber conference in National Harbor, Maryland that the U.S. has 'on orbit, space-control weapons, capable of defending the joint force against hostile adversaries' — a first for any U.S. official.
- Victoria Samson, chief director of space security and stability at the Secure World Foundation, called the admission 'huge,' said no U.S. official has ever said it before, and warned it could push China and Russia to publicly acknowledge their own space weapons.
- Samson said the weapons are most likely space-based jammers or electronic warfare systems, not kinetic weapons, reasoning that officials have repeatedly warned against creating orbital debris.
- Meink also announced that space-based interceptors, the cornerstone of President Trump's Golden Dome missile defense system, are now 'flight ready,' with prototype satellites for the Air Force's space-based Airborne Moving Target Indicator constellation launching this month.
- Gen. Michael Guetlein, Golden Dome's direct-reporting program manager, warned last month at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium that the project would be in 'dire straits' without additional Congressional funding, but said two tests have been 'phenomenally successful.'
- The admission marks a sharp rhetorical break from 2022, when John Raymond, the service's first chief of space operations, said the Space Force's 'primary purpose is to deter war.'
Why it matters: Defense experts warn that the first-ever public U.S. acknowledgment of 'on-orbit' space weapons could push China and Russia to openly declare their own counter-space capabilities, accelerating a previously shadowed arms race. The rhetorical shift from the Space Force's 2022 'deter war' mantra to Meink's insistence on 'maintaining dominance' — paired with his refusal to disclose what kind of weapons these are — gives adversaries new diplomatic cover while leaving U.S. policy opaque even to outside analysts.
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