A mysterious Russian satellite displaying "very abnormal behaviour" has raised alarm in the US, according to a State Department official. "We don't know for certain what it is and there is no way to verify it," said assistant secretary Yleem Poblete at a conference in Switzerland on 14 August.
She voiced fears that it was impossible to say if the object may be a weapon.
Russia has dismissed the comments as "unfounded, slanderous accusations based on suspicious" [sic].
The satellite in question was launched in October last year. "[The satellite's] behaviour on-orbit was inconsistent with anything seen before from on-orbit inspection or space situational awareness capabilities, including other Russian inspection satellite activities," Ms Poblete told the conference on disarmament in Switzerland.
"Russian intentions with respect to this satellite are unclear and are obviously a very troubling development," she added, citing recent comments made by the commander of Russia's Space Forces, who said adopting "new prototypes of weapons" was a key objective for the force. Ms Poblete said that the US had "serious concerns" that Russia was developing anti-satellite weapons.
[...] [Ms Stickings (Royal United Services Institute - RUSI) said] "The narrative coming from the US is, 'space was really peaceful, now look at what the Russians and Chinese are doing' - ignoring the fact that the US has developed its own capabilities."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 16 2018, @08:04PM (1 child)
Strike equivalent, it's probably a copy.
They want to create a "Space Force" so they can create all kinds of new technologies, to leak to the Russians, so they have to create new even better technology.... to leak to the Russians. Ad infinitum. Really the should just invite the general staff to moscow to the pentagon and set up an in house strip club. It would be cheaper for the taxpayer to just pay for the blowjobs for the general staff, than pay the vendors to supply them. I'm sure the GOA would agree.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Friday August 17 2018, @07:59PM
Maybe it is the X-37B. Perhaps they launched it when Obama was in office and Trump fired all the people who knew anything about it?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].