Orbiting “Smart Rocks” knocking out missiles at ultrasonic speeds, laser and electromagnetic guns firing mega bullets and incinerating beams with infinite range in zero gravity, and spaceships with robotic arms throwing satellites into “graveyard orbits” could be among the space weapons that the U.S. Air Force recently announced are being deployed over the Earth.
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“Today we continue to ensure we remain ready to meet the challenges of evolving threats wherever they exist. This is why the United States now has on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the joint force against hostile adversary action,” said U.S. Air Force Secretary Troy Meink, in the first official acknowledgement of American deployment of weapons in space.
“Today we continue to ensure we remain ready to meet the challenges of evolving threats wherever they exist.”
Meink would not give further details about the arms being sent into orbit, but space weapon engineers have told the British newspaper, The Sun, that they are based on blueprints for the Strategic Defense Initiative program initiated by President Ronald Reagan, which critics at the time ridiculed as “Star Wars” fantasy.
“The Pentagon has long been developing space weapons technology involving rocket-propelled impactors, electromagnetic guns, space-based lasers, neutral particle beams and X-ray lasers,” says Robert Scheder, a space-based missile defense systems analyst with the RAND Corporation who initially designed SDI.
The program was shelved with the end of the Cold War following the collapse of the Soviet Union. But systems developed under Reagan are now being revived to counter new threats from Russia and China, which have recently been testing space weapons.
“China develops and operates space and counterspace capabilities as part of a military modernization strategy,” according to the U.S. Space Force, which was formed as a branch of the Air Force by President Donald Trump in 2019.
China has recently conducted “orbital dogfighting” exercises in which unmanned “space planes” release clusters of Shijian 24-C and smaller electronic intelligence Shijian-6 objects which “perform synchronized close proximity maneuvers at low earth orbits,” says Space Force general Michael Guetlein.
The exercise could involve rehearsals for deployment of “parasitic” micro satellites that China has been developing, which latch onto other satellites and can destroy them on command, experts have told The American Spectator.
Space Force also warns that “Russia views space as a warfighting domain and believes space supremacy will be a decisive factor in future conflicts.” According to intelligence reports, Russia has been working on an anti-satellite system that would use a nuclear explosion detonated in space to release an electromagnetic pulse that could disable or destroy satellite constellations.
SDI was originally designed to shield against a surprise Soviet missile attack. Technology has become more sophisticated, and the threat has evolved from one previously limited to land targets to a wider space battlefield encompassing satellites and other orbiting assets on which our entire defense and economic infrastructure now depends and could be primary targets of orbital attacks.
SDI was conceived as a multilayered system in which a “boost phase layer” composed of highly sensitive satellite-mounted sensors and telescopes detects a ballistic missile launch, distinguishing the actual projectile from decoys and countermeasures. It activates interceptions by orbiting “rocket-propelled impactors” as the missile enters space before reaching its terminal phase back into Earth.
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“Rocket-propelled impactors are small rocket boosters that orbit the Earth, each carrying a lightweight ‘smart rock’ which are propelled to very high velocity. These rockets are directed by mother satellites in higher orbit which identify the attacking ballistic missile targets, track them, and guide the smart rocks to collide with and destroy the targets with force of impact,” Scheder wrote in one of his papers for RAND.
Sci-fi-defying space battles that could decide the fate of civilizations would take place at speeds measured in milliseconds within the time frames of ICBM trajectories, which can be less than 20 minutes. “We are talking about bullets hitting bullets,” Scheder says.
Orbiting electromagnetic space guns also fire projectiles at hypersonic speeds whose velocity multiplies in space, unimpeded by gravity. Scheder says that they can be more effective than lasers. Heat rays may be faster in reaching the target but could take time to pierce holes deep enough to disable a missile or killer satellite before it reenters Earth’s atmosphere or reaches a programmed detonation point.
“Brilliant Pebbles,” as the concept of swarming projectiles onto hypersonic targets was named during a brief revival of SDI research under President Bill Clinton, was canceled over its massive cost. It was estimated that over 1,600 killer satellites would need to be put in orbit to effectively defend against a nuclear attack.
“But the much smaller size of satellites and advances in miniaturization technology would limit the cost substantially in today’s terms,” Scheder says. Commercially available space technology currently produced by SpaceX and other contractors would also lower development costs and shorten deployment time.
The former SDI director, retired U.S. Air Force General James Abrahamson, places the current SDI costs at about a fifth of what it may have originally been estimated. Congressional critics of Reagan’s Star Wars claimed it could take up the Pentagon’s entire budget at the time.
Other space weapons that the U.S. could be placing in orbit may include satellites capable of jamming enemy communications and conducting cyberattacks or new orbiting weapons that could re-enter the Earth at a given command to take out ground targets. The Pentagon has also been developing systems to protect the U.S. satellite fleet from parasitic satellites and similar passive threats, using lasers and robots.
Alarmed reactions from Russia and China to Air Force Secretary Meink’s recent comments indicate fears of an escalating space arms race in which they may ultimately be unable to compete.
The Chinese foreign ministry called on the U.S. “to stop expanding military build-up in outer space. China opposes any attempt to weaponize space and turn it into a warzone.”
“We believe that space must be free of any weapon,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
Air Force officials have said that a U.S. space-based interceptor program had moved “from initial contract to flight-ready hardware in less than one year.” The critical time window allowing the U.S. to put space weapons in orbit before China and Russia might be a lot narrower without Reagan’s Star Wars vision that laid the foundations for the project 40 years ago.
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