Russia tries to develop a space nuclear weapon to destroy satellites

(CNN) — Russia is trying to develop a space nuclear weapon that could destroy satellites by creating massive energy waves when detonated, potentially crippling a large swath of the world’s commercial and government satellites for cell phone conversations, payments, bills and surfing. Internet, according to three sources familiar with US intelligence on the weapon.

The sources gave CNN a more detailed understanding of what Russia is up to — and the threat it could pose — than the U.S. government has previously disclosed.

The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Republican Mike Turner of Ohio, sparked outrage in Washington on Wednesday when he issued a statement saying his panel had “information concerning a serious threat to national security.” On Friday, President Joe Biden publicly confirmed that Turner was referring to a new Russian anti-satellite nuclear capability, but officials have declined to discuss it further, citing the highly classified nature of the information.

The weapon is still in development and not in orbit, Biden administration officials have stressed publicly. But if used, officials say, it would cross a dangerous Rubicon in the history of nuclear weapons and could disrupt daily life in ways that are hard to predict.

This new type of weapon – commonly known as a nuclear EMP to military space experts – would create a pulse of electromagnetic energy and an avalanche of highly charged particles that would ripple through space to disrupt other satellites flying around Earth.

On Friday, Biden publicly asserted that “there is no nuclear threat to the people of the United States or anywhere else in the world from what Russia is doing right now.”

“Everything they are doing and/or will do is related to satellites and space and potentially harms those satellites,” he said.

The Defense Department and the intelligence community have been following Russian efforts to develop a wide range of anti-satellite weapons, including EMP, for years.

And in recent months there has been an influx of intelligence reports related to Russia’s efforts to develop nuclear-powered anti-satellite capabilities, according to a defense official.

But Russia has recently stepped up its efforts to develop nuclear EMP, a related but far more worrisome technology.

“Our general knowledge of Russian pursuit of this type of capability goes back several months, if not 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 how Russia continues to pursue (that goal).”

John Kirby, strategic communications coordinator for the White House National Security Council, speaks during the daily briefing at the White House, January 26, 2024, in Washington. (Credit: Kevin Dyche/Getty Images)

The intelligence community, Biden said, “discovered that there is the ability to launch a system into space that could theoretically do something that would be disruptive,” but that “hasn’t happened yet.”

“It’s not a new concept, and as a concept it goes back to the end of the Cold War,” a US official said. But, he said, “the big danger with any final EMP device in orbit (is) that it could disable a large part of a given orbit by creating a minefield of disabled satellites”. And this “would then prove dangerous for 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 Defense Department and the National Security Council declined to comment.

It was not immediately clear whether the device, by design, could affect GPS and nuclear command and control satellites, which operate in orbits higher than the vast constellation of commercial and government satellites that buzz around Earth’s orbit. These large satellites are designed to be invulnerable to a nuclear blast, but a former senior Pentagon space official told CNN they “could be vulnerable” to an EMP, depending on how close they are to an EMP, their age and the intensity of the blast.

A weapon of last resort

Experts say such a weapon could have the ability to take out a megaconstellation of small satellites like SpaceX’s Starlink, which has been successfully used by Ukraine in its current war with Russia.

This photo taken on September 25 shows the antenna of the Starlink satellite-based broadband system donated by American tech billionaire Elon Musk to Isium in Kharkiv region amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

According to a US official and other sources, it would almost certainly be a “weapon of last resort” for Russia, as it would cause similar damage to any Russian satellite that was also in the area.

It is also not clear to what extent this technology is developed. Russia has experienced several public failures with its nuclear technology in recent years. In 2019, seven Russians died in a nuclear accident as Moscow tried to recover a nuclear-powered cruise missile that crashed into the White Sea during a failed test.

Still, the latest intelligence assessment of the Russian advance so alarmed some lawmakers on Capitol Hill that Turner invited all House members to a briefing on the matter.

Shortly thereafter he issued an unequivocal public statement that brought the issue into the public light.

Several sources familiar with the matter said the disclosure of the intelligence was extremely damaging because the source was extremely sensitive. According to those sources, the intelligence community is now scrambling to figure out how to preserve its access.

Biden administration officials say 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.

“That 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, virtually destroying the post-Cold War arms control architecture.