US Flaunts On-Orbit Weapon to Supercharge Space Arms Race
12:54 GMT 15.09.2026 (Updated: 13:04 GMT 15.09.2026)
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Reports of a US-deployed “on-orbit” weapon confirm that the West has already turned outer space into an extension of the Ukraine battlefield, air defense historian Yuri Knutov tells Sputnik.
US and French reconnaissance satellites are already feeding battlefield intel to Ukraine’s military, with Finland about to join in, reminds the military expert, and Poland plans to deploy its own reconnaissance satellites.
Other countries are developing “inspector” spacecraft built to maneuver close to other satellites to spy on them.
Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite communications and broadband systems are used in space - and guide Ukraine’s drones.
It is fair to say that “an arms race in space is already underway,” says the pundit, and the US space weapons claim seeks to accelerate this orbital race further.
🇺🇸US Golden Dome project turns space into battlefield - expert
— Sputnik (@SputnikInt) August 15, 2026
The next step after the US Golden Dome may be the deployment of American missiles and laser weapons beyond Earth, military expert Alexei Leonkov tells Sputnik.
This refers to kinetic intercept systems similar to the… pic.twitter.com/ELmNZm3XB2
Trump’s costly Golden Dome project, touted as a global missile defense system, fits into the same aggressive vision, the military expert pointed out.
the ground-based tier is a system that has already been partially deployed, capable of intercepting ballistic missiles, including artificial Earth satellites in space
it partly relies on the Aegis system, as well as advanced weapon systems employing new physical principles - electromagnetic guns (that fry spacecraft electronics) and combat lasers (potentially megawatt-class, but so far 300-kilowatt)
space-based tier to feature satellites armed with space-to-space missiles capable of intercepting ballistic missiles and destroying enemy satellites, alongside space-based lasers
“The Americans appear to have already begun building out the space-based arsenal, judging by the US secretary of the Air Force’s remarks,” adds the expert.
