The United States has stationed weapons in Earth’s orbit, Air Force Secretary Troy E. Meink said on Monday, the first such public acknowledgment by a Pentagon official after years of preparations to counter potential deployments by Russia and China.
“We are increasing readiness against existing threats, and the United States has on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the Joint Force against hostile adversary action,” he said at a convention in Maryland, according to a news release published on the Air Force’s website.
Mr. Meink did not provide details about the type of weapons or say when they had been deployed. He made his remarks in a keynote speech at the Air, Space and Cyber Conference in National Harbor, Md., an annual forum hosted by the Air and Space Forces Association, a nonprofit organization for members of both services.
The Space Force did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Monday.
The Pentagon has long feared that China and Russia are making advances in space operations that could threaten U.S. ground forces as well as American satellites.
In 2024, The New York Times reported that American intelligence agencies had raised concerns that Russia could be planning to put a nuclear weapon in space, a threat that could disrupt satellite networks that are vital to everything from communications to military operations.
Shortly after President Trump returned to the White House last year, he signed an executive order to expand American air defenses, including the development and deployment of “space-based interceptors.” The project, named the Golden Dome, would be designed to guard against weapons such as hypersonic missiles, which Russia has deployed in Ukraine.
In May, Mr. Trump said that Gen. Michael Guetlein, the vice chief of space operations at the Space Force, would oversee the project.
The United States, Russia and China began testing weapons capable of destroying satellites decades ago, but the United States has since disavowed such arms because they leave destructive debris fields in orbit.
In recent years, the Air Force started developing “low-debris-causing weapons” capable of disrupting or disabling enemy satellites, Frank Kendall, who served as Air Force secretary under President Joe Biden, told The Times in a 2024 interview.
Gen. Chance Saltzman, who served as the Space Force’s chief of space operations during the Biden and second Trump administrations until his retirement last month, told a Senate committee in 2023 that the new space weapons systems would be fully operational by 2026.
Neither Mr. Kendall nor Gen. Saltzman specified how the systems would work. Other former Pentagon officials have said they likely would include lasers, high-powered microwave systems or even U.S. satellites that can grab or move enemy satellites.
Mr. Kendall said in 2024 that it was prudent to recognize that space “is a place that can be used for military advantage.”
“The threat is there,” he said at the time. “It’s a domain we have to be competitive in.”