On Tuesday, Gen. Ryder said the Pentagon believes the Russian satellite “may be capable of attacking other satellites in low Earth orbit.”
“Russia has placed this new counterspace weapon in the same orbit as a U.S. government satellite.
“The evaluation therefore further indicates similar characteristics to previously deployed counterspace payloads in 2019 and 2022.
“We have a responsibility to protect and defend the domain and space domain and ensure continuous, uninterrupted support for the joint force,” the Pentagon spokesperson added.
Separately, a spokesperson for the U.S. Space Command told Reuters that the satellite in question was “highly likely to be a counterspace weapon capable of attacking other satellites in low Earth orbit.”
The Cosmos 2576 satellite was launched May 16 from Russia's Plesetsk Cosmodrome, about 800 kilometers north of Moscow, a spokesperson said.
Russia's Roscosmos state space agency said in a statement that the May 17 launch was “in the interest of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.” It stated that the Soyuz-2.1b launch vehicle was used.
The reason for the different reported release dates may be because the Moscow time zone is three hours ahead of GMT.
Neither Moscow nor Washington provided further details.
But space analysts say Cosmos 2576 appears to be in the same orbit as America's USA 314 satellite.
Russia has warned that U.S. satellites supporting Ukrainian forces could be legitimate targets since it launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
In February, the White House acknowledged that Russia was developing “troubling” new space weapons but insisted it had not yet deployed them.
This comes after a senior Republican lawmaker issued a cryptic warning about a serious national security threat, sparking intense buzz around Washington DC.
Russia is developing a variety of anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons, including a missile it successfully tested against a defunct Soviet-era satellite in November 2021, according to a report published last year by the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. .
