New US space weapon adds to arsenal to counter Russia, China

Tony Capaccio, Bloomberg News on Sep 16, 2026

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The revelation by the Air Force this week that the U.S. now has a weapon in space stoked speculation — but few answers — about the weapon’s capability.

“As much as you want to know, Beijing wants to know even more,” Lieutenant General Greg Gagnon, commander of the Space Force’s Combat Forces Command, which trains personnel to operate systems such as the on-orbit weapon, said on Wednesday.

Air Force Secretary Troy Meink announced at a conference on Monday that the U.S. now has a space weapon that would be used to protect American forces, prompting a warning from the Russian Foreign Ministry of the “the gravest consequences” if it is used.

The weapon is the orbital component of the current U.S. space arsenal that has consisted of ground-based jammers intended to temporarily disrupt Chinese and Russian communications satellites, though not to destroy them.

The current jammers are known as the “Counter Communications System” — a large satellite-dish weapon fielded since 2020 — as well as a smaller, mobile model called “Meadowlands” in operation since July, and the even more mobile system known as the Remote Modular Terminal, which is on the cusp of being fully fielded.

“We’re not going to talk about the specifics of what we’re doing — whether we’ve tested it, not tested it, or anything else,” Meink told reporters Monday after his disclosure.

Asked how the newly disclosed on-orbit capability fits with the current arsenal, Gagnon said “all weapon systems kind of complement each other, and you bring them together when you synchronize them in military operations.”

Yet “this one is based in space so it’s already different,” said Victoria Samson, a space weapons analyst for the Secure World Foundation. “There are reports that China and Russia are thought to have spaced-based jammers and I thought it strange we would not,” she said.

Jammers might also be easier to place on orbit than lasers or particle beam weapons, Samson said.

Still, if the U.S. just fielded jammers that temporarily blind a Chinese or Russian satellite, one “could be left with the impression the United States is possibly not willing to use kinetic weapons in the physical space domain,” said Clayton Swope, a space and aerospace fellow at the Center For Strategic and International Studies, referring to more destructive technologies.

Space debris policy

In 2022, the United States pledged that it would not conduct destructive, direct-ascent anti-satellite missile testing.

“This is a very specific pledge,” Swope said.

“The idea behind that specific testing moratorium was that there is no reason to create debris that could jeopardize the use of space in peacetime,” he continued, adding that “wartime is another story.”

Gagnon said Wednesday that U.S. policy prohibiting the creation of space debris applies to testing but stopped short of saying that prohibition doesn’t apply to the new weapon.

“The reason we have capabilities is to help create deterrence,” Gagnon said. “When you go to war, you break things.”