{"id":84941,"date":"2026-09-16T18:11:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T12:41:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/?p=84941"},"modified":"2026-09-16T18:11:57","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T12:41:57","slug":"weaponisation-of-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/16-09-2026\/weaponisation-of-space","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Acknowledges Deploying Weapons in Space"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Syllabus: GS3\/Space; GS2\/IR<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Context<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The United States said it had <strong>active weapons deployed in space, <\/strong>the first such public admission by any country.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>About<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The US did <strong>not reveal the nature of weapons deployed,<\/strong> or when they were deployed.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>There was immediate<strong> reaction from China and Russia, <\/strong>two countries that the US considers its space adversaries.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Both urged the US to <strong>stop expanding its military capabilities and preparing for war in outer space<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Weaponisation of Space<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>The military use of outer space covers:<\/strong> the ability to launch a missile from Earth to destroy enemy satellites or other space-based assets, the ability to send weapons from space to destroy ground-based targets, or the use of space-based weapons to target space-based assets.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The <strong>ability to disrupt or jam the enemy\u2019s communications<\/strong> between its space and Earth-based systems, or attack their cyber-networks, <strong>can also be extremely effective in a conflict situation.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Several countries have developed some, or all, of these capabilities, the <strong>most open demonstrations of such capabilities have been the anti-satellite tests,<\/strong> in which countries send <strong>a missile to destroy a satellite in space.<\/strong>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Four countries, the US, Russia, China and India <\/strong>have demonstrated this.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img data-dominant-color=\"d0d9df\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"691\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-images.nextias.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/format=auto\/ca\/uploads\/2026\/09\/image-116-1024x691.png\" alt=\"weaponisation of space\" class=\"not-transparent wp-image-84942\" style=\"--dominant-color: #d0d9df; aspect-ratio:1.481971551438968;width:534px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/wp-images.nextias.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/format=auto\/ca\/uploads\/2026\/09\/image-116-1024x691.png 1024w, https:\/\/wp-images.nextias.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/format=auto\/ca\/uploads\/2026\/09\/image-116-300x202.png 300w, https:\/\/wp-images.nextias.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/format=auto\/ca\/uploads\/2026\/09\/image-116-768x518.png 768w, https:\/\/wp-images.nextias.com\/cdn-cgi\/image\/format=auto\/ca\/uploads\/2026\/09\/image-116.png 1193w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Laws Governing Space<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>All countries emphasise on peaceful uses of space <\/strong>and call upon each other not to militarise space.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>But <strong>there is no international law that explicitly prohibits<\/strong> the deployment or use of such weapons or tactics in space.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 bars<\/strong> countries from carrying or placing nuclear weapons or \u201cother kinds of weapons of mass destruction\u201d in space.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>It is silent on conventional weapons, <\/strong>or those that target physical infrastructure in space.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>It does not say anything about <strong>earth-to-space weapons<\/strong>, the development of which was still some distance away in the 1960s.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Attempts to create an international legal framework<\/strong> to regulate the deployment and use of weapons in space were made, but support from all the major space powers was lacking.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>The Artemis Accords, <\/strong>an initiative of NASA and the US State Department, is a <strong>voluntary code of conduct<\/strong> on exploration of space. It has over 70 signatory countries, including India.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>All cooperative activities are meant to be for <strong>peaceful purposes<\/strong>, but there is nothing that prevents signatories from deploying or using weapons in space.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Source: IE<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><strong> Context <\/strong><\/p>\n<li class=\"ms-5\"> The United States said it had active weapons deployed in space, the first such public admission by any country. <\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><strong> About <\/strong><\/p>\n<li class=\"ms-5\"> The US did not reveal the nature of weapons deployed, or when they were deployed. <\/li>\n<li class=\"ms-5\"> There was immediate reaction from China and Russia, two countries that the US considers its space adversaries. <\/li>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/16-09-2026\/weaponisation-of-space\" class=\"btn btn-primary btn-sm float-end\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-affairs"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84941"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84945,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84941\/revisions\/84945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}