2024-02-17 05:17:00
(CNN) — Russia is trying to develop a space nuclear weapon that would destroy satellites by creating a massive energy wave when detonated, potentially crippling a wide swath of the commercial and government satellites the world depends on for cell phone conversations, payments. bills and surfing the Internet, according to three sources familiar with US intelligence on the weapon.
These sources gave CNN a more detailed understanding of what Russia is working on — and the threat it might pose — than the US government has previously revealed.
Republican Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, sparked a frenzy in Washington on Wednesday when he issued a statement saying his panel “had information relating to a serious threat to national security.” On Friday, President Joe Biden had publicly confirmed that Turner was referring to a new Russian anti-satellite nuclear capability, but officials have steadfastly refused to discuss it further, citing the highly classified nature of the information.
The weapon is still in the development phase and is not in orbit, Biden administration officials have publicly stressed. But if used, officials say, it would cross a dangerous rubicon in the history of nuclear weapons and might cause extreme disruption to everyday life in ways that are difficult to predict.
This new type of weapon – generally known to military space experts as a nuclear EMP – would create a pulse of electromagnetic energy and an avalanche of highly charged particles that would streak through space to disrupt other satellites flying around Earth.
On Friday, Biden publicly stressed that “there is no nuclear threat to the people of the United States or anywhere else in the world with what Russia is doing right now.”
“Everything they are doing and/or will do is related to satellites and space and potentially damaging those satellites,” he said.
The Defense Department and the intelligence community have for years followed Russian efforts to develop a wide range of anti-satellite weapons, including an EMP.
And in recent months there has been a stream of intelligence reports related specifically to Russia’s efforts to develop nuclear-powered anti-satellite capabilities, according to a defense official.
But Russia has recently advanced its efforts to develop a nuclear EMP, a related but much more alarming technology.
“Our general knowledge of the Russian pursuit of this type of capability goes back many, many months, if not a few years,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Thursday. “But only in recent weeks has the intelligence community been able to assess with greater confidence exactly how Russia continues to pursue (that target).”
John Kirby, Strategic Communications Coordinator for the White House National Security Council, speaks at the daily briefing at the White House on January 26, 2024 in Washington. (Credit: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
The intelligence community, Biden said, had “discovered that there was a capability to launch a system into space that might theoretically do something that would be disruptive,” but that “hadn’t happened yet.”
“It’s not a new concept, and as a concept it goes back to the end of the Cold War,” a U.S. official said. But, he said, “the big fear with any eventual EMP device in orbit [es] “which might render large portions of particular orbits unusable” by creating a minefield of disabled satellites. And this “would then prove dangerous to any new satellites we might try to launch to replace or repair existing satellites,” he added.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Defense and the National Security Council declined to comment.
It was not immediately clear whether the device, as designed, might affect GPS and nuclear command and control satellites, which operate in a higher orbit than the vast constellation of commercial and government satellites that buzz around Earth’s orbit. low. These larger satellites are designed to be impregnable to a nuclear explosion, but a former senior Pentagon space official told CNN that they “might be vulnerable” depending on how close they were to the EMP, their age and the magnitude of the explosion. .
Weapon of last resort
Experts say this type of weapon might have the potential to take out megaconstellations of small satellites, such as SpaceX’s Starlink, which have been successfully used by Ukraine in its current war with Russia.
This photo taken on September 25 shows an antenna of the Starlink satellite-based broadband system donated by American tech billionaire Elon Musk in Izyum, Kharkiv region, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
According to the US official and other sources, it would almost certainly be “a weapon of last resort” for Russia, since it would cause the same damage to any Russian satellite that was also in the area.
It is also unclear to what extent this technology is developed. Russia has had several public debacles with its nuclear technology in recent years. In 2019, seven Russians died in a nuclear accident that occurred while Moscow was trying to recover a nuclear-powered cruise missile that had crashed into the White Sea during a failed test.
Still, a recent intelligence assessment on Russian progress so alarmed some lawmakers on Capitol Hill that Turner issued an invitation to all House members for a briefing on the matter.
Shortly followingward he issued the vague public statement that ended up bringing the issue to public light.
Several sources familiar with the matter stated that the disclosure of the intelligence information was extremely damaging because the source was incredibly sensitive. According to those sources, the intelligence community is now scrambling to figure out how to preserve its access.
Biden administration officials maintain that if Russia were to launch a nuclear EMP, it would be the first violation of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which prohibits the placement of weapons of mass destruction in outer space.
“It would be a violation of the Outer Space Treaty signed by more than 130 countries, including Russia,” Kirby said Thursday, without giving further details.
Russia has withdrawn from several arms control treaties in recent years, leaving the post-Cold War arms control architecture virtually destroyed.
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