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Vice President Harris on Monday announced the U.S. will avoid testing anti-satellite missiles, urging other nations to follow the lead of the Biden administration after a Russian test last November created a field of debris in space. Harris announced the self-imposed ban on the tests, known as direct-ascent anti-satellite missile testing, during a visit to Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. Administration officials expressed hope that the policy would become an international norm for other nations to abide by, calling the anti-satellite missile tests “one of the most pressing threats to the security and sustainability of space.”

U.S. and NATO military intelligence agencies have recently identified a “mysterious” Russian missile they believe is designed to take out allied communications and targeting satellites during a conflict. The missile was spotted underneath a MiG-31 interceptor, and it’s estimated to be a mock-up version that could be ready to deploy by 2022, three sources told CNBC.

Former Pentagon official Mark Schneider warned...'The loss of GPS guidance due to [anti-satellite] attack would take out a substantial part of our precision weapons delivery capability and essentially all of our standoff capability.

WASHINGTON — A mysterious Russian military satellite parked itself between two Intelsat satellites in geosynchronous orbit for five months this year, alarming company executives and leading to classified meetings among U.S. government officials. The Russian satellite, alternatively known as Luch or Olymp, launched in September 2014 and seven months later moved to a position directly between the Intelsat 7 and Intelsat 901 satellites, which are located within half a degree of one another 36,000 kilometers above the equator. At times, the Russian satellite maneuvered to about 10 kilometers of the Intelsat space vehicles, sources said, a distance so close that...

February 22, 2008 Son of Star Wars takes out toxic satellite in $30m space hit Michael Evans, Defence Editor and Jane Macartney in Beijing Video need to know: expert opinion on the satellite operation The United States provided dramatic proof of its capability to destroy an object in space when a US navy missile scored a direct hit on an American satellite falling out of control. Missile experts said that the Standard SM-3 weapon, fired from the USS Lake Erie, a Ticonderoga-class cruiser, took about three minutes to reach the satellite 150 miles (240km) up in the sky, flew above...

Defense: Members of Congress warn that the State Department is working on arms accords to demilitarize space and ban anti-satellite weapons, leaving Russia and China with a huge lead in military space capabilities. On Jan. 17, 2012, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued a statement announcing the Obama administration's intention to work with the European Union on an International Code of Conduct for Outer Space Activities. It was supposed to be sort of a "rules of the road" for space-faring nations to deal with issues such as the accumulating space junk jeopardizing satellites and manned space activities such as the...

Earlier this month, the State Department learned that debris from the Chinese weather satellite destroyed in their 2007 anti-satellite test would be coming uncomfortably close to another — functioning — Chinese satellite. So, like any good neighbor, State told China about the possibility of a collision. In technical terms, the US shared conjunction analysis with our PRC brethren. But, as often happens with the fabulously opaque Chinese government, the US isn’t sure if China heard us or believed us. At a conference on space debris last week in Germany, a U.S. military officer spoke with someone presumed to be a...

China most likely conducted its January 2007 anti-satellite weapon test in the Kuerle region of western Xinjiang province, according to a report by the Kanwa Asian Defense news service. The service reported June 1 that “reconnaissance satellite intelligence” identified “facilities that have appeared to the South of Kuerle.” Large phased array radar antenna are located in a desert region to the south of Kuerle. The two phased array radar are similar to the Arrow II ballistic missile interception system designed by Israel, the report said. Additionally, China’s Second Artillery, which is in charge of all missiles, has a missile test...

The U.S. media suspects China and India of developing anti-satellite weapons. An article to this effect has been published the New Scientist magazine. Until recently, only the Soviet Union, its legal successor Russia and the United States were capable of developing anti-satellite weapons. U.S. analysts now think that China and India are acquiring similar capabilities. To what extent are such fears justified? It is hard to overestimate the role played by military satellite systems. Since the 1970s, an increasingly greater number of troop-control, telecommunications, target-acquisition, navigation and other processes depend on spacecraft which are therefore becoming more important. At this...

National Security: On the eve of a visit by China's No. 2 ranking military officer, the Obama administration loosens export controls on technology that will benefit Chinese missile development. It's deja vu all over again. The Pentagon has announced that Chinese Gen. Xu Caihou will visit the United States and meet with Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Oct. 26. Xu is vice chairman of the People's Liberation Army Central Military Commission. While here, Xu will visit American military installations around the U.S., including the U.S. Pacific Command. Perhaps Xu will bring with him a note of thanks for the administration's...

NEW DELHI: In view of the looming Chinese threat to its communication network and other space assets, India on Tuesday announced the setting up of its Integrated Space Cell (ISC). The cell is designed to counter the Chinese Military Space Systems that comprises anti-satellite weaponry and a new class of heavy-lift and small boosters acting as catalyst in the next generation satellite warfare system. The Space Cell will be put under the command of the Integrated Defence Services Headquarters and will act as a single window for integration among the armed forces, the department of space and the Indian Space...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The shooting apart of a crippled U.S. spy satellite last month created no significant new space debris, with all but small bits burning on re-entry to the atmosphere, the mission commander said on Wednesday. "We thought there would be much larger pieces," Rear Admiral Alan Hicks, who heads the Pentagon's Aegis ballistic missile defense program, said in the most comprehensive report yet on the destruction of the satellite known as USA-193. In fact, none of the debris was larger than a football, he told a briefing at an annual conference of the U.S. Navy League, a booster...

The F-15 Eagle test pilot settled into the cockpit of the fighter jet at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., awaiting takeoff with a 2,700 pound, 18-foot long missile mounted to the jet's centerline. The mission, dubbed the "Celestial Eagle Flight," called for a nearly vertical ascent to 35,000 feet and firing the missile through earth's atmosphere to kill a satellite over 2,000 miles away at an altitude of 300 miles. The F-15 Anti-Satellite Combined Test Force had been close to perfecting an air-launched missile capable of destroying orbiting satellites threatening the United States in previous flights, but this clear day...

The Bush administration has suspended plans to develop space ventures with China, including joint exploration of the moon, in reaction to Beijing's Jan. 11 test of an anti-satellite weapon that left orbiting debris threatening U.S. and foreign satellites. National Aeronautics and Space Administration spokesman Jason Sharp said the weapon test undermined an agreement reached between President Bush and Chinese President Hu Jintao during an April summit. "We believe China's development and testing of such weapons is inconsistent with the constructive relationship that our presidents have outlined, including on civil space cooperation," Mr. Sharp said. He said there were "some initial...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Trash from China's satellite-killing missile test has spread widely in space, creating a debris cloud that could jeopardize spy satellites and commercial imagery satellites in low orbits around Earth, U.S. officials said on Monday.Even the manned International Space Station is vulnerable to being hit by some of the thousands of pieces of trash created when China slammed a ground-based medium-range ballistic missile into an aging Chinese weather satellite about 537 miles above Earth on January 11, the officials said."The test created a lot of debris. It definitely raises the possibility that something is going to be hit,...

Something disturbing happened five hundred miles above China on January 11th. An old Chinese weather satellite was in orbit, and then, quite abruptly, it wasn't. Or, rather, if it was, it was no longer in one piece, and if it had been in any way operational before, it certainly wasn't afterward. United States Air Force tracking radars will now have a more challenging job, to track all of the debris that's large enough to track. American intelligence agencies believe that it was destroyed by a weapon fired from Xichang, a major launch facility in Sichuan, China. While details remain classified,...

China's satellite shoot-down concerns Taiwan Sat Jan 20, 2:55 AM ET Taiwan has expressed concern after rival China reportedly shot down a space satellite for the first time, saying the act would negatively affect peace between them and in the region. "We urge the international community to express their concerns over China's move, which would have negative impact on peace in the Taiwan Strait and in the region," said cabinet spokesman Cheng Wen-tsang. "The satellite shown-down showed that China has expanded its arms race to space and that its so-called 'peaceful rise' is merely an illusion," he said. The English-language...

MOSCOW. Jan 19 (Interfax) - Reports that a Chinese ballistic missile has hit a satellite are "highly exaggerated rumors," Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said. "I have heard reports to that effect, and they are quite abstract. I'm afraid they don't have such an anti-satellite basis. The rumors are highly exaggerated," Ivanov told reporters in Moscow.

China successfully carried out its first test of an antisatellite weapon last week, signaling its resolve to play a major role in military space activities and bringing expressions of concern from Washington and other capitals, the Bush administration said yesterday.

China is threatening America's lead in technology By Ernest Hollings and Charles McMillion Financial Times, January 15, 2007 China's soaring spending on technology research and development now exceeds that of Japan. An authoritative recent study shows that if current trends continue, China's R&D spending will pass the European Union in four years and the US in seven. If China's spending continues to accelerate or if the US rate slows, China could be the world's leader even sooner. Make no mistake: with China's much larger population and lower production costs, the only way the US can maintain its high standard of...