The Warning – Russian nuclear satellite (NY Times)

by | Dec 9, 2024 | Blog

Image: Shutterstock

What’s New: Some pretty detailed info about Russian plans for nukes in space.

Why It’s Important: It could radically alter daily life on the planet as we know it. The weapon could cause global warfare, economic collapse, famine…

What Else to Know:

  • No one is really sure just how unstable Russian leadership is. That could be part of their plan.
  • We wonder if Russian leadership has thought about their people going down in history being known by everyone else as the ones who ruined everything. Who destroyed the planet. We wonder if Putin and his cronies have any concerns about “legacy” for themselves and Mother Russia.

Thanks to alert RNTF member Mitch Narins for calling this to our attention.

Opinion

The Warning

Graphics by Taylor Maggiacomo and Jeremy Ashkenas

Mr. Hennigan writes about national security for Opinion.

U.S. military personnel at Space Command, in Colorado Springs, have kept a close eye on Cosmos 2553 ever since it reached orbit. Bathed in the bluish glow of their computer screens, they sit and watch what’s going across all of space day after day, tracking the latest information on satellite constellations, coming rocket launches and the daily operation of the space-based systems that shape modern life.

But Cosmos 2553 is different. It circles Earth every two hours in a region called a graveyard orbit. Only 10 other satellites are out there, and all of them have been dead for years. The area is rarely used in part because it’s inside the Van Allen belts, zones of high radiation that encircle the planet.

That’s why Moscow claims Cosmos 2553 is there — to test out “newly developed onboard instruments and systems” against radiation. But what it’s really doing, U.S. officials say, is testing components for a Russian weapon under development that could obliterate hundreds, if not thousands, of critical satellites. Cosmos 2553 isn’t armed, but it does carry a dummy warhead, one of several details being reported here for the first time. So while the orbiting satellite poses no imminent danger, the officials caution it does serve as a forerunner to an unprecedented weapon.

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