The U.S. has confirmed for the first time that it has sent weapons into space, but an air and space law expert says the action has no “legal significance” and that there is no indication the U.S. has taken any “groundbreaking” steps in its pursuit of dominance in the domain.

U.S. Air Force Secretary Troy Meink told the Air and Space Cyber Conference in Maryland on Monday that it has deployed “on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the Joint Force against hostile adversary action.”

An on-orbit weapon is a system launched into orbit and designed to target threats from that position for the purpose of space control.

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“We are increasing readiness against existing threats,” Meink said.

He did not provide details on what the weapons are, how they operate, the nature of the threats the U.S. has identified, or if they are related to an orbital arms race with China and Russia.

China, responding to the U.S., said Tuesday, “We urge the U.S. side to stop expanding its military capabilities and preparing for war in outer space,” according to a BBC report citing the AFP.

Andrea Harrington, co-director of the Institute of Air and Space Law and Associate Professor in the McGill Faculty of Law, told Global News that it is unlawful under the Outer Space Treaty to have “nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in orbit or stationed elsewhere in space,” but that there is “no indication that what he’s [Meink] talking about.”

“So, there’s no legal prohibition there,” she explained.

“The rhetorical significance is that the U.S. is openly acknowledging it,” she said, before likening it to when the U.S. started referring to space as a “war-fighting domain,” close to a decade ago.

“That was a big rhetorical change but didn’t have a significant practical change in terms of what capabilities were out there.”

A contested domain for decades

Orbital machinery with militaristic capabilities are not a new concept. In 1986, The U.S. conducted testing of such technologies; according to the Secure World Foundation, Russia first tested an on-orbit system in the 1960s, the organization says.

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In 2019, U.S. President Donald Trump created the U.S. Space Force, a distinct military branch of the U.S. Army dedicated to warfare in space, akin to China’s Aerospace Force, and last year signed an executive order outlining the department’s role as both a defensive and offensive entity designed to establish “superiority in space.”

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Russia has a similar space warfare branch under its Aerospace Forces, a combined department overseeing aerospace warning systems, missile defences, and military satellites, though it is not an independent division of the army.

In 2024, the U.S. said Russia was developing anti-satellite devices that could launch from space, but argued at the time that those capabilities posed no imminent threat to American infrastructure.

While Russia, China, and the U.S. have emerged as dominant forces, Harrington acknowledged that the degree of contestation has increased as more states invest in defensive space capabilities.

“It’s a security dilemma,” she said.

“Once weapons and capabilities start being developed, start being deployed, then other states feel they have to do the same thing to protect against those capabilities.”

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In August, Trump signed an executive order to establish the nation’s first Space Academy to educate and train a new generation of technical and operational staff for NASA, the U.S. Space Force and the commercial space industry.

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“Given the rapid growth of the U.S. Space Force and commercial space industry, and the expansion of our ambitions to the Moon and far beyond the Moon, it’s clear we will need to educate and train an entire generation of skilled service members, engineers, and civil operators,” he said last month.

According to a space threat fact sheet published by the U.S. Space Force, China “develops and operates space and counterspace capabilities as part of a military modernization strategy” intended to exercise control over the U.S. military in the Indo-Pacific region, while Russia views space as a “warfighting domain” and believes “space supremacy will be a decisive factor in future conflicts.”

No recent information has publicly surfaced about how close Russia might be to deploying anti-satellite weapons in space, according to a 2025 Space Threat Assessment report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, though it notes several potential threats.

“The jamming and spoofing of GPS signals in and around war zones, including near and in Russia and throughout the Middle East,” has become a “worrisome trend,” it says, citing Russian and Chinese technology in various states of orbit as showing increasingly complex operational capabilities and tactical proficiencies that can be used in space warfare.

Jamming is common, Harrington noted, and not novel.

The report goes on to say that the U.S. and its international partners “remain concerned that Russia could decide to deploy such a weapon,” and that U.S. Space Force senior leaders are prepared to conduct offensive and defensive space operations with the intention to field more “counterspace capabilities.”

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The report described space as “fair game” during conflict and says the normalization of space as a “military operational domain” means warfare may bring the same level of destruction to space that it would to places “closer to Earth.”

It also says that counterspace threats should be viewed as an effort by adversaries to degrade the ability of the U.S. and its allies to fight and win a war, to disrupt the economy and day-to-day life on Earth.

Why space matters on Earth

Harrington noted the significant role space capabilities play in modern life; without them, we would not have precise location services on our phones, car navigation systems that rely on infrastructure in space, or Starlink, which uses orbiters for its high-speed internet connections.

Satellite systems are essential to everything from banking services to pumping fuel at the gas station, which both rely on the timing signals from satellites for payment processing, Harrington said.

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“If those timing signals are not available, then you have a freeze in the financial system for calculating financial transactions. A lot of different problems can occur.”

Satellites also help with weather forecasting and data collection for the study of climate change.

“There are fundamental aspects of day-to-day life that are dependent on space capabilities, whether those are navigation and timing, communication, or observation. But those are all essential capabilities that we rely on day-to-day,” she explained.

Currently, the Outer Space Treaty serves as the principal legislation laying out fundamental rules about activities in space, and all of the major spacefaring states are party to it.

The Outer Space Treaty covers all activities in outer space, whether they are carried out by governments or private organizations.

With files from Global News’ Nathaniel Dove.