by The White House has confirmed it is monitoring a new Russian anti-satellite weapon it said is being developed but not yet deployed, saying it is “troubling” but not a threat immediately for the safety of anyone.
National security spokesman John Kirby would not confirm or deny reports that Russia’s new weapon was nuclear, but said it was “space-based” and violated the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which bans deployment in space. nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction.
Related: ‘Everyone must be calm’: experts assess Russia’s nuclear space threat
Kirby was briefing reporters at the White House amid a wave of speculation following cryptic remarks about the new threat from the Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee, Mike Turner.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan was due to meet with a “group of eight” of congressional leaders from both parties on Thursday afternoon to discuss the threat, after Sullivan and other US officials expressed surprise about Turner decided to publicize his classified information.
“Although I am limited in what I can share about the specific nature of the threat. I can confirm that it is related to the anti-satellite capability that Russia is developing,” Kirby said. “This is not an active, deployed capability, and while Russia’s pursuit of this particular capability is troubling, there is no immediate threat to anyone’s safety. We are not talking about a weapon that can be used to attack people or cause physical destruction here on Earth. That said, we are closely monitoring this Russian activity and will continue to take it very seriously.”
He added that the weapon believed to be being developed would be “space-based and would be in violation of the Outer Space Treaty to which more than 130 countries are signatories”.
Related: A senior US official warns of a security threat amid reports of Russia’s nuclear capability in space
Turner made public the new national security threat Wednesday because of an apparent breach of the terms of confidentiality under which members of the administration brief the “group of eight.” Sullivan expressed surprise Thursday at Turner’s decision to issue a public call for the material to be declassified.
When he visited Albania on Thursday, the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said: “This is not an active capability but a potential capability that we are taking very seriously and I hope we will have more to say. very soon. Stay tuned for that.”
Blinken added that the Biden administration was “consulting with allies and partners on this issue as well.”
“President Biden’s focus is on the security of the US and its people as we face this issue and all other issues that are foremost on his mind,” he said.
Prior to the signing of the Outer Space Treaty in 1967, the US conducted a series of high-altitude nuclear tests, the largest of which was Starfish Prime in July 1962, which lit up much of the sky above the Pacific Ocean, triggering an electromagnetic pulse in much more than expected, and caused the formation of radiation zones around the Earth, which caused satellites in their path to malfunction.
Starfish Prime demonstrated that a nuclear detonation in space could have an indiscriminate effect on all orbiting satellites, paving the way for the nuclear powers to sign the Outer Space Treaty five years later.
John Logsdon, founder of George Washington University’s space policy institute, said that if Russia intended to launch a nuclear anti-satellite weapon, it could mean that Moscow had “developed a more sophisticated technological system, where its effects are limited somehow”.
On the other hand, launching a nuclear-powered spacecraft designed to jam other satellites, Logsdon said, is a throwback to the past, when Moscow launched several such craft.
In 1978, a Soviet nuclear-powered satellite, Kosmos 954, malfunctioned and crashed in northern Canada, scattering radioactive debris over hundreds of miles.
Russia has been working hard on conventional anti-satellite technology for the past 14 years, the Global Security Foundation think tank reported last year in a report on Global Counterspace Capabilities.
“There is strong evidence that Russia has undertaken a series of programs since 2010 to regain much of its Cold War-era anti-space capabilities,” the report said. He added that much of Russia’s activity was focused on surveillance, but noted that two “sub-satellites” were deployed at high speed in Moscow, suggesting that some of Russia’s activity was “of a army”.
Transitioning to nuclear-powered “killer” satellites would not be illegal, and Logsdon argued that they would not change the balance of power during the ongoing militarization of space.
“Not at all,” he said. “It’s just another way that a spacecraft gets power, through solar panels, or some other means of producing electricity, or a nuclear reactor.”
