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Air Force Secretary Troy Meink speaks Sept. 14 at the Air, Space and Cyber Conference in National Harbor, Maryland.
NATIONAL HARBOR, Maryland—The U.S. has weapons in space, Air Force Secretary Troy Meink announced Sept. 14, without disclosing whether they are kinetic or non-kinetic.
“Today, we continue to ensure we remain ready to meet the challenges of evolving threats wherever they exist,” Meink said in a keynote speech at the Air & Space Force Association’s Air, Space and Cyber Conference here. “This is why the United States now has on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the joint force against hostile adversary action.”
U.S. military officials have used increasingly forceful rhetoric in recent years regarding warfighting in space. Meink declined to elaborate further during a fireside chat after his remarks, saying, “That phrase was very well thought out.” He further demurred when asked whether he was describing non-kinetic weapons during a media roundtable on Monday.
Adversaries have been working to dismantle U.S. space systems related to sensing and command-and-control, he noted. “We’ve had to take steps to make sure that when we’re threatened, we can take care of that.”
Meink used the opening speaker slot of the symposium to describe how the Department of the Air Force is scaling combat power as conflict brews on Earth and the space domain grows more competitive.
The Space Force’s newest major programs are moving quickly along, Meink noted. The space-based interceptor program, part of the multilayered Golden Dome mission defense architecture, moved from initial contracts to flight-ready hardware within one year, and the nascent Space Data Network is similarly moving quickly, he said.
The first launch of satellites for a future space-based air moving target indication (AMTI) network will take place this month, Meink added. In July, the Space Force awarded SpaceX a $1.6 billion contract under the National Security Space Launch program to support 18 launches related to Space-based AMTI and the Space Data Network, Aviation Week previously reported.
“Taken together, these investments will help us adapt and scale the force for today and tomorrow’s threat,” he said.
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