WASHINGTON
Air Force Secretary Troy Meink publicly confirmed Monday that the United States has deployed weapons in space, saying the systems will defend American forces against hostile action. Meink made the acknowledgment at the Air, Space and Cyber Conference in National Harbor, Maryland, marking the first official admission of such weapons in orbit.
Meink declined to specify what weapons the U.S. has placed in orbit or when they were deployed. The announcement serves as a deliberate signal to China and Russia that Washington is prepared to contest their expanding military presence beyond Earth's atmosphere.
President Donald Trump established the U.S. Space Force in 2019, integrating it into the Air Force structure. Trump has repeatedly touted the move as a historic step to strengthen American defense as China and Russia develop new capabilities to challenge U.S. dominance in space.
U.S. military intelligence assesses that China develops and operates space and counterspace capabilities as part of its military modernization. Russia views space as a warfighting domain and believes space supremacy will prove decisive in future conflicts.
U.S. officials have warned about recent Chinese and Russian tests. Russia has conducted satellite constellation training missions that Washington interprets as demonstrating "attack and defend tactics" for combat. China developed a nuclear-capable partial-orbit hypersonic missile that U.S. officials say raises significant concerns.
U.S. intelligence agencies assessed in 2024 that Russia was developing a space-based nuclear weapon designed to generate an electromagnetic pulse that could disable large numbers of commercial and government satellites, according to earlier reporting. Moscow denied the allegation.
Such a weapon could devastate critical infrastructure worldwide, disrupting satellites used for weather prediction, disaster response, and global navigation systems that support banking, cargo shipping, ride-sharing services and ambulance dispatch.
Meink said the Pentagon had taken steps to ensure the U.S. can respond when threatened. "It is critically important that we maintain our dominance not only in the air but in space, and so we've had to take steps to make sure that when we're threatened, we can take care of that," he said.
The 1967 Outer Space Treaty prohibits nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction in orbit but permits conventional weapons in space and allows ground-based weapons to target space assets. The legal ambiguity gives nations flexibility in interpreting what deployments are permitted.
Trump signed an executive order in December emphasizing U.S. space superiority as essential to American national interests.
