{"id":45176,"date":"2024-05-24T23:55:39","date_gmt":"2024-05-24T15:55:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/us-officials-a-russian-rocket-launch-last-week-likely-deployed-a-space-weapon\/"},"modified":"2024-05-24T23:55:39","modified_gmt":"2024-05-24T15:55:39","slug":"us-officials-a-russian-rocket-launch-last-week-likely-deployed-a-space-weapon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/us-officials-a-russian-rocket-launch-last-week-likely-deployed-a-space-weapon\/","title":{"rendered":"US officials: A Russian rocket launch last week likely deployed a space weapon"},"content":{"rendered":"

The launch of a classified Russian military satellite last week deployed a payload that US government officials say is likely a space weapon.<\/p>\n

In a series of statements, US officials said the new military satellite, named Kosmos 2576, appears to be similar to two previous \u201cinspector\u201d spacecraft launched by Russia in 2019 and 2022.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust last week, on May 16, Russia launched a satellite into low-Earth orbit that the United States assesses is likely a counter-space weapon presumably capable of attacking other satellites in low-Earth orbit,\u201d said Robert Wood, the deputy US ambassador to the United Nations. \u201cRussia deployed this new counter-space weapon into the same orbit as a US government satellite.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kosmos 2576 is flying in the same orbital plane as a National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) spy satellite, meaning it can regularly approach the top-secret US reconnaissance platform. The launch of Kosmos 2576 from Russia\u2019s Plesetsk Cosmodrome on a Soyuz rocket was precisely timed to happen when the Earth\u2019s rotation brought the launch site underneath the orbital path of the NRO spy satellite, officially designated USA 314.<\/p>\n

The Soyuz rocket\u2019s Fregat upper stage released Kosmos 2576 into an orbit roughly 275 miles (445 km) above Earth at an inclination of 97.25 degrees to the equator.<\/p>\n

Conventional but concerning<\/h2>\n

So far, Kosmos 2576 is nowhere near USA 314, a bus-size spacecraft believed to carry a powerful Earth-facing telescope to capture high-resolution images for use by US intelligence agencies. This type of spacecraft is publicly known as a KH-11, or Keyhole-class, satellite, but its design and capabilities are top-secret.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no surprise that the Russian military wants to get a close look in hopes of learning more about the US government\u2019s most closely held secrets about what it does in orbit. Russian satellites have also flown near Western communications satellites in geostationary orbit, likely in an attempt to eavesdrop on radio transmissions.<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, dismissed the US government\u2019s assessment about the purpose of Kosmos 2576 as \u201cfake news.\u201d However, in the last few years, Russia has steered satellites into orbits intersecting with the paths of US spy platforms, and demonstrated it can take out an enemy satellite using a range of methods.<\/p>\n

The current orbit of Kosmos 2576 will only occasionally bring it within a few hundred kilometers of the USA 314, according to Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist and expert tracker of spaceflight events. However, analysts expect additional maneuvers to raise the altitude Kosmos 2576 and put it into position for closer passes. This is what happened with a pair of Russian satellites launched in 2019 and 2022.<\/p>\n

These two previous Russian satellites\u2014Kosmos 2542 and Kosmos 2558\u2014 continually flew within a few dozen kilometers of two other NRO satellites\u2014USA 245 and USA 326\u2014in low-Earth orbit. In a post on the social media platform X, McDowell wrote that the Russian military craft \u201cshadowed US satellites at a large distance but have not interfered with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because of this, McDowell wrote that he is \u201chighly skeptical\u201d that Kosmos 2576 is an anti-satellite weapon.<\/p>\n

But one of these Russian satellites, Kosmos 2542, released a smaller sub-satellite, designated Kosmos 2543, which made its own passes near the USA 245 spacecraft, a KH-11 imaging satellite similar to USA 314. At one point, satellite trackers noticed USA 245 made a slight change to orbit. Its Russian pursuer later made a similar orbit adjustment to keep up.<\/p>\n

In 2020, Kosmos 2543 backed off from USA 245. Once well away from the NRO satellite, Kosmos 2543 ejected a mysterious projectile into space at a speed fast enough to damage any target in its sights.<\/p>\n

At the time, US Space Command called the event a \u201cnon-destructive test of a space-based anti-satellite weapon.\u201d The projectile fired from Kosmos 2543 at a relative velocity of some 400 mph (700 km per hour), according to McDowell\u2019s analysis of publicly available satellite tracking data.<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Gen. Charles \u201cCQ\u201d Brown, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, says the US military must have an ability to defend itself in space. <\/p>\n

Credit:
\n Kevin Dietsch\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

The US military has identified China as its most significant strategic adversary in the coming decades. Most aspects of Russia\u2019s space program are in decline, but it still boasts formidable anti-satellite capabilities. Russia intentionally destroyed one of its retired satellites in orbit with a ground-based missile in 2021. The Russian military has also deployed several Peresvet laser units capable of disabling a satellite in orbit. A Russian cyberattack at the start of the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 knocked a commercial satellite communications network offline.<\/p>\n

Most recently, US government officials have claimed Russia is developing a nuclear anti-satellite weapon. Russian officials also denied this. But Russia vetoed a UN Security Council resolution last month reiterating language from the 1967 Outer Space Treaty banning weapons of mass destruction in orbit.<\/p>\n

The US military has its own fleet of inspector satellites in orbit to track what other nations are doing in space. The Space Force\u2019s development of any offensive military capability in space is classified.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe space domain is much more challenging today than it was a number a number of years ago,\u201d said Air Force Gen. Charles \u201cCQ\u201d Brown, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, in an event Wednesday hosted by the Atlantic Council. \u201cWe looked at it as a very benign environment, where you didn\u2019t have to worry about conflicts in space. As a matter of fact, naming space as a warfighting domain was kind of forbidden, but that\u2019s changed, and it\u2019s been changed based what our adversaries are doing in space.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want to have our satellites \u2026 be challenged,\u201d Brown said. \u201cSo we want to make sure that we have the capabilities to defend ourselves, no matter what domain we\u2019re in, whether it\u2019s in the space domain, air, land, or maritime. That\u2019s where our focus is as a military, in making sure we\u2019re investing to provide the capabilities and expertise to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The launch of a classified Russian military satellite last week deployed a payload that US government officials say is likely a space weapon. In a series of statements, US officials said the new military satellite, named Kosmos 2576, appears to be similar to two previous \u201cinspector\u201d spacecraft launched by Russia in 2019 and 2022. \u201cJust […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45177,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[533,9691,25,257,352,452,2752],"class_list":["post-45176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-asat","tag-keyhole","tag-launch","tag-military-space","tag-russia","tag-space-warfare","tag-spy-satellite"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45176"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}