White House confirms US has intelligence on Russian anti-satellite capability::The White House on Thursday confirmed that the national security threat flagged by the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee the previous day is related to “an anti-satellite capability that Russia is developing,” but sought to soothe concerns about the danger it presents to the United States.

  • orclev@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Wait, is this new? I was pretty sure it was known since like the 90s that both Russia and China had anti-satellite satellites, to say nothing of the ground and plane launched missiles. There was a satellite destroyed like a decade ago I think that was strongly suspected of being a test firing of some countries satellite weapon.

    The big problem with these things isn’t that they exist, it’s that usage of them leads a very strong chance of triggering a Kessler cascade, and then everyone’s going to have a bad time.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    9 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    The White House on Thursday confirmed that the national security threat flagged by the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee the previous day is related to “an anti-satellite capability that Russia is developing,” but sought to soothe concerns about the danger it presents to the United States.

    “This is not an active capability that’s been deployed,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Thursday.

    Kirby’s comments came a day after the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Republican Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio, ignited a firestorm on Capitol Hill when he issued a cryptic statement announcing that the panel had “information concerning a serious national security threat.”

    Turner has faced withering criticism, even from members of his own party, for publicizing the committee’s knowledge in a vague post to social media.

    The United States has been aware of Russia’s pursuit of anti-satellite capability going back “many, many months, if not a few years,” Kirby said, and Biden has been briefed on it since the outset of his term.

    He said it was only in recent weeks that the intelligence community has been “able to assess with a higher sense of confidence exactly how Russia continues to pursue it.”


    The original article contains 373 words, the summary contains 198 words. Saved 47%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!