{"id":893055,"date":"2026-09-15T16:24:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-15T16:24:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/893055\/"},"modified":"2026-09-15T16:24:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T16:24:16","slug":"us-space-force-confirms-weapons-deployed-in-space-for-first-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/893055\/","title":{"rendered":"US Space Force confirms weapons deployed in space for first time"},"content":{"rendered":"

The United States<\/a> has weapons deployed in space<\/a>, the US Space Force<\/a> said on Monday, confirming the presence of such capabilities in orbit for the first time.<\/p>\n

“The US has on-orbit space control weapons<\/a> capable of defending the Joint Force against hostile adversary action,” a US Space Force spokesperson said in a statement that did not provide specifics on the weapons.<\/p>\n

“Space control encapsulates the mission areas required to contest and control the space domain \u2013 employing kinetic and non-kinetic means to affect adversary capabilities,” the statement said, adding that “these capabilities can be employed for offensive and defensive purposes”.<\/p>\n

Read more‘Passengers or pilots?’ Europe looks to challenge US dominance in space sector with \u20ac10 billion plan<\/a><\/p>\n

Both Russia<\/a> and China<\/a> \u2013 the two main geopolitical rivals of the United States \u2013 pose potential threats to US interests in space.<\/p>\n

China “develops and operates space<\/a> and counterspace capabilities as part of a military<\/a> modernisation strategy”, while Russia “views space as a warfighting domain and believes space supremacy will be a decisive factor in future conflicts”, according to the US Space Force.<\/p>\n

Watch moreWhose space is it? Europe scrambles as US rules satellite race<\/a><\/p>\n

The militarisation of space is as old as the space race itself \u2013 as soon as Sputnik was launched into orbit in 1957, Washington<\/a> and Moscow<\/a> began exploring ways to both arm and destroy satellites.<\/p>\n

The biggest worry was once about nuclear weapons<\/a> in space, but the superpowers and other countries signed the Outer Space Treaty in 1967, banning weapons of mass destruction in orbit.<\/p>\n

Since then, Russia, the United States, China and India<\/a> have explored ways to fight in space outside of that treaty, including by targeting rivals’ satellites, which are key for military communications, surveillance and navigation.<\/p>\n

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The United States has weapons deployed in space, the US Space Force said on Monday, confirming the presence…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":893056,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[59745,2942,64,63,92719,128,285,2957,15466],"class_list":["post-893055","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-aerospace","tag-americas","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nuclear-weapons","tag-science","tag-space","tag-usa","tag-weapons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=893055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/893056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=893055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=893055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=893055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}