A senior congressional aide speaking to The Associated Press pointed to concerns about Russian anti-satellite weapons.
Rep. Mike Turner gave no details about the nature of the threat, and the Biden administration also declined to address it. But several leading lawmakers, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, cautioned against being overly alarmed.
The congressional aide said he understood that the threat relates to a space-deployed Russian anti-satellite weapon. Such a weapon could pose a major danger to U.S. satellites that transmit billions of bytes of data each hour.
The aide, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, said it was not yet clear if the Russian weapon has nuclear capability, but said that is the fear.
OK based on that I'd guess Russia is deploying that satellite they tested a few years ago, the one they used to blow up other (decommissioned) satellites and everyone had a panic attack about debris. the nuclear part is probably that it's able to store and fire standard missiles, some of which could potentially be fitted with a nuclear warhead.
The ASAT test in November is the latest in a series of such actions by Russia. The missile used in the test, Nudol, has been tested several times in the past without a hit-to-kill mission. At the 2021 Reagan National Defense Forum, U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) noted that Russia had attempted to test its ground-launched ASAT missile βseveral times in recent years and failed, so it was predictable that they would keep trying until they scored a hit.β12 The latest hit-to-kill demonstration indicates that Russia may have perfected its ASAT missile.
In 2014, the Russian Olymp-K satellite demonstrated co-orbital ASAT capabilities in the geostationary orbit where several critical military command-and-control satellites operate.13 Additionally, Russia has fielded ground-based lasers and a range of satellite-jamming systems to deny and degrade the capacity of weapons that rely on satellited-enabled information. These weapons are detailed in Russian military literature as a vital mechanism to eliminate Russian vulnerabilities to Western precision weapons.
Russia has also tested co-orbital ASAT systems that target satellites beyond low-earth orbit. In October 2017, three Russian satellitesβKosmos-2519, Kosmos-2521, and Kosmos-2523βconducted high-velocity orbital maneuvers. In January 2020, two Russian satellites, Kosmos-2542 and Kosmos-2543, performed coordinated, close-approach orbital maneuvers in the vicinity of a U.S. military reconnaissance satellite, the KH-11. Six months later, in July 2020, the Kosmos-2543 satellite fired a high-velocity projectile into outer space. Such a projectile could act as a potent ASAT weapon. U.S. Space Force commander Gen. John Raymond has described the orbital experiments performed by these satellites as βRussian nesting dollβ satellites and claimed they βexhibited characteristics of a weapon system.β14
Why not just fire missiles form satellites then? Why does russia have to waste entire generaitons of young men in a pointless war when they should be doing ewhat the us was doing in the middle east or obama was doing and using drones and shit? why not just use satellites?
OK based on that I'd guess Russia is deploying that satellite they tested a few years ago, the one they used to blow up other (decommissioned) satellites and everyone had a panic attack about debris. the nuclear part is probably that it's able to store and fire standard missiles, some of which could potentially be fitted with a nuclear warhead.
