(The Epoch Times)—The Secretary of the Air Force said on Sept. 14 that the United States has weapons deployed in space.
“Today, we continue to ensure we remain ready to meet the challenges of evolving threats wherever they exist,” Secretary Troy Meink said at the Air & Space Forces Association’s annual conference in National Harbor, Maryland. “This is why the United States now has on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the joint force against hostile adversary actions.”
Meink’s comment came during his keynote address, titled “Advancing Combat Power in Air and Space.” However, no further details on the state or nature of those weapons were discussed at that time.
This is the first time the United States Armed Forces have confirmed the presence of weapons in space, a global point of debate and concern since the Soviet Union launched Sputnik into orbit in 1957.
Meink declined to elaborate further during a question-and-answer session immediately following his speech, stating “that phrase was very well thought out.”
However, he did elaborate on what he saw as a necessity to maintain U.S. space capabilities and deter any threats to them from growing adversaries, who remained nameless.
“Our maintaining and being able to count on those space capabilities is important, and as everybody knows, there have been many who have developed capabilities to take those away from us, to threaten those things,” he said. “So it is critically important that we maintain our dominance not only in the air but in space.”
“So, we’ve had to take steps to make sure that when we’re threatened, we can take care of that,” he added.
The United States Space Force released a space warfighting framework in 2025. It defines “Space Control” as a core function to gain space superiority.
“Space control comprises the activities required to contest and control the space domain,” the framework stated.
Those activities would include “counterspace operations,” like offensive orbital strikes, terrestrial strikes, and Space Link Interdiction, which is defined as “actions taken to disrupt, deny, or degrade an enemy’s critical space links,” through non-kinetic action such as an electromagnetic attack or cyberattack.
Those operations would also include active and passive defensive actions like threat warning and counterattack.
Meink highlighted separately the Space-Based Interceptor Program, which is currently in development as part of President Donald Trump’s Golden Dome missile defense system.
He said in his keynote address that he continued to stand by what he called the fundamental mission, which is to “Defend the homeland, deter all adversaries, and, if necessary, win in combat.”
However, he also acknowledged the rapidly changing warfighting environment, from one-way attack drones to the deployment of artificial intelligence.
“Today we face a mix of rapidly changing technologies and adversaries moving aggressively to employ them,” he said.
“If we expect to deter our adversaries, we must increase our combat power, innovate faster than anyone else, affordably. We need cost-effective combat power,” he added.
