There’s a Space Weapon Circling the Planet. Here's What We Know.

On September 14, at the 2026 Air and Space Cyber Conference in Maryland, Troy Meink, the 27th Secretary of the United States Air Force, was giving a speech about how the military was stepping up to defend the homeland when he casually dropped a piece of information that could shape humanity’s future in space.“The United States has on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the Joint Force against hostile adversary action,” he said. In other words: The U.S. has placed a weapon, or weapon system, in orbit around Earth.This is the first time any country has publicly declared that they have taken this course of action, but it’s openly acknowledged that the U.S., China, and Russia have been developing off-world weaponry for several decades. “It is no surprise that the U.S. has deployed a space weapon,” says Rod Thornton, who studies Russian Defense and Security Studies at King’s College London.

Source: nationalgeographic.com