[suspenseful music playing]
[David] For decades, world leaders
and military generals
have dreamed of weaponizing space.
In December 2019
- the concept became reality. - Thank you very much.
[David] And the United States Space Force
became the newest branch of the military.
[woman] Two, one.
[David] This sixth branch of the military
would defend the vast infrastructure of satellites,
currently orbiting largely unprotected above Earth,
and be ready to attack if they came under threat.
This is the story of the race to build
the ultimate space weapon.
[woman] Arm and go.
Absolutely, a space-based laser weapon system
is possible.
[David] It is a dark, mysterious,
and secretive world.
This is called the, uh, HackRF One.
[David] A world of clandestine projects,
secret rocket launches,
and futuristic tech.
It was shocking, it was a wake-up call,
and I was stunned.
[Dr. Grego] You can't hide in space.
Space is a more vulnerable place
than the Earth.
[David] There's no doubt that powerful space weapons
- are coming. - [machine beeping]
[David] The final frontier has become
the military's newest battle zone.
[ominous music playing]
[David] Since the end of the Cold War,
the US has enjoyed unrivaled dominance in space,
but that authority is quickly fading,
as technology advances
and more countries have space capabilities,
the possibility of a devastating space war
has never been greater.
Dr. Brian Weeden is all too aware
of the increasing threat.
For nine years, he served as an officer
in the US Air Force
including US Space Command.
[Dr. Weeden] My job while I was there, uh,
I was working as what's known as an orbital analyst,
and that is a person who helps keep track
of where all those satellites are.
[David] Brian can pinpoint the day
everything changed in space.
January 11, 2007 was, um,
a very interesting day.
[machine beeping]
[David] For US Space Command, the day began as normal,
monitoring the satellites in orbit
that helped society function.
There was nothing of obvious concern.
[Dr. Weeden] It started as a normal day.
[David] But then, from a remote base
in Southern China,
a military missile was fired.
[machine beeping]
[David] Within seconds, US Space Command
detected the launch.
The US military has a system of satellites
that are used to detect, uh, infrared signatures
mainly for big missiles and rockets.
So when the launch happened,
within a relatively short period of time,
we knew that something had taken off,
a missile of some sort.
[David] Space Command had received prior intelligence
that China was developing an anti-satellite weapon
and it seemed they were ready for a test run.
[Dr. Weeden] The immediate question,
is it targeting a certain satellite?
And of course, you also have the humans
on the International Space Station.
[David] Traveling at more than 20,000 miles per hour,
the missile reached an altitude of 530 miles,
and then it struck.
[intense music playing]
There was kind of a holy cow moment,
you know, "What just happened?"
One of the radar sites that we used,
tracked basically was supposed to be a satellite
and instead reported hundreds of pieces of debris.
That was a pretty shocking moment.
[David] China had used the missile to destroy
one of its own satellites.
It was the first successful test
of an anti-satellite weapon in more than 20 years.
Washington was stunned.
General William Shelton is a former head
of US Space Command.
It was shocking,
uh, to say the least.
Uh, I can recall,
uh, thinking that things had just
drastically changed.
Uh, we had always thought about space as being,
um, a peaceful sanctuary.
And for security of the United States,
we had put, uh, things up there to,
uh, maintain the peace if you will.
Um, this was an offensive, uh, act
and the first offensive act,
uh, by another nation.
So it was shocking, it was a wake-up call,
and I was stunned.
[David] The missile hadn't just destroyed the satellite,
it turned the spacecraft into a cloud of space junk.
[Dr. Weeden] What we're seeing here
is a computer animation
of all of the space debris
created by the 2007 China's anti-satellite test.
When that satellite was destroyed,
it turns what was one object
into thousands of objects.
There's about 2,000 functional satellites
that are also orbiting the Earth.
Many of them in similar altitudes
to the space debris.
And so, as they are going around the Earth,
there's a chance that one of these pieces of debris
may come close to or even collide
with one of those active satellites.
[dramatic music playing]
[David] The fallout was immense.
The Chinese had tested a space weapon
and it proved to be devastatingly effective.
It raised a terrifying question.
Could an attack on another country's satellites
trigger the unimaginable,
a war in space?
We know that the Chinese have also launched a missile
to geosynchronous orbit as a demonstration.
All orbital regimes now are threatened
by what the Chinese are doing.
[man 1] [speaking in foreign language]
- [man 2] Okay. - [David] The US Military
could no longer take its dominance of space
for granted.
Space was once again a contested domain.
[woman] Range and rate, 0.71...
[David] Today, the space superpowers
are locked in a new arms race.
[indistinct radio chatter]
[David] But ironically,
the most powerful space weapon known today
was actually one of the first to be created.
This weapon is so powerful,
it's been estimated that it could wipe out
up to 90% of the satellites in Low-Earth Orbit.
Yet it was discovered almost by accident.
[intense music playing]
[David] Dr. Greg Spriggs
is one of the few people alive today
who witnessed the event.
Greg works as a nuclear weapons physicist
at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
He spends much of his time analyzing data
from past nuclear tests.
Many of which were conducted down the road from Las Vegas.
So we're standing here in the middle of Las Vegas,
about 70 miles in that direction
is the Nevada test site.
So the Nevada test site was mostly our test area
for the United States.
They did about a thousand shots,
eight hundred underground shots,
and there were about two hundred or so
above ground shots.
Here in Las Vegas, they used to have parties.
They would announce when the shot was gonna occur.
They didn't want it to frighten anybody.
And then the hotels would try to attract people
to come to their hotel that they would have
nuclear bomb parties on the roofs
or on their balconies to go out and watch.
[explosion]
[David] Tourists were drawn by the iconic blast
and mushroom cloud,
but there was another more mysterious effect
from the explosions.
An invisible burst of intense energy
called an electromagnetic pulse.
[Dr. Spriggs] There are four major nuclear weapon effects.
The first effect is the prompt radiation
that comes off of the fission process.
The next effect is the shockwave.
The next effect is the thermal blast.
And the last effect is the EMP,
which is caused from an electric current.
So all of this prompt radiation that was emitted
from the bomb goes out, gets absorbed in the atmosphere,
and causes a current.
And that current then causes a change
in the electronic current or magnetic field in that area
and you can disrupt electronic equipment.
[David] The electromagnetic pulse effect
had the capability of damaging
electronic equipment
by frying circuit boards.
[car approaching]
[dramatic music playing]
[David] It was to inspire the development
of what to this day remains
the most terrifying space weapon ever discovered,
a nuclear explosion in outer space.
This is what Greg witnessed as a young boy in 1962.
My dad was in the Navy for 20 years and this,
uh, one particular picture shows him being sworn in.
Uh, we moved about every three or four years.
And in 1962,
he was stationed on Midway Island.
Midway is a very small island, only about two square miles
out in the middle of the Pacific.
I was 11 years old at the time.
[David] The test was given the codename
"Starfish Prime."
The nuclear weapon was to be launched
from Johnston Island,
approximately 930 miles
from Midway.
Greg, his family, and about 2,000 others
gathered to watch a once in a lifetime spectacle
as the US military prepared to detonate
its first nuclear weapon in space.
[ominous music playing]
[David] At 10:00 on July 9th, 1962,
a missile armed with a nuclear warhead
launched from Johnston Island into outer space.
Nuclear physicist, Greg Spriggs,
was just 11 years old,
but it was a sight he'll never forget.
[Dr. Spriggs] We were told to look to the south
and as we're standing there,
of course, the detonation went off,
and the entire sky lit up like it was noon.
And it just didn't matter which way you were looking,
it was very, very bright.
[David] Newly declassified footage
shows the explosion 250 miles
above the Earth's surface.
[Dr. Spriggs] It went through all different kind of colors.
It went through reds, and ultraviolets,
and blues, and greens.
And eventually, in about 15 minutes or so,
it kind of died back to being pitch-black again.
But it just really didn't hit me until years later
when I was in, uh, graduate school,
and I didn't realize what I had seen.
So it was a very historic test.
I don't think we ever wanna repeat it.
[David] But the effects of the explosion
went far beyond what scientists had expected.
[upbeat music playing]
[man] From a ground station, nestled in the mountains
of Andover, Maine, a signal is sent
to a speeding satellite.
An historic feat that could reshape man's future.
That satellite, of course,
is the Telstar, a hundred and seventy pounds...
[David] The day after the Starfish Prime explosion,
NASA launched the world's first
communication satellite, Telstar 1.
[man] ...future plans called...
[David] The world marveled as the satellite began
relaying television signals across the Atlantic.
[man] ...in this age of scientific miracles
so proudly...
[David] Just seven months later,
Telstar stopped working.
Starfish Prime had claimed
its most famous victim.
In fact, about a third of all satellites
then in space were destroyed
by mysterious after effects
of the explosion.
Scientists realized that they had stumbled
upon a space weapon of terrifying destructive power.
In 2001, the Pentagon modeled
how a modern day Starfish Prime
might affect modern life.
They predicted that the explosion
would eventually cripple all unprotected satellites
in Low-Earth Orbit,
turning them into scraps of space junk.
[Gen. Shelton] I hope people are smart enough
not to do that. I hope we've got
much more rational actors in charge,
particularly the countries that have nuclear weapons.
[David] During the Cold War,
both the United States and Soviet Union
carried out nuclear tests in outer space.
Against this backdrop,
nations began to establish space law.
Dr. Laura Grego is an astrophysicist
who works for the Union of Concerned Scientists.
[Dr. Grego] It's called the Outer Space Treaty,
signed in 1967.
[David] For over half a century,
this international agreement
signed by the US, Russia, and China
has governed what the military can
and can't do in outer space.
[Dr. Grego] Article IV is where it gets really specific.
States Parties to the Treaty undertake
not to place in orbit around the Earth
any objects carrying nuclear weapons
or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction,
install such weapons on celestial bodies,
or station such weapons in outer space.
Article IV forbids the placement
of nuclear weapons in space.
It doesn't forbid the detonation
of nuclear weapons in space.
Uh, the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963
is what covers the detonation
of nuclear weapons in space.
So those two treaties combine to have
a pretty strong protection against nuclear detonations,
um, as anti-satellite weapon.
[David] The treaty stresses
that any extraterrestrial activity
should be peaceful.
[Dr. Grego] While the treaty does say that, um,
space should be used for peaceful purposes
and no other state should interfere
with other state's use of it for peaceful purposes,
it doesn't specifically exclude
other types of weapons besides, um,
weapons of mass destruction.
[David] But nothing in the treaty forbids
using space-based systems
to guide warfare here on Earth,
a loophole the US military heavily utilizes.
[airplane engine whirring]
[Gen. Shelton] From the commander-in-chief,
the president, uh, on down
through the military chain of command,
everyone is using space capability these days
for military operations.
We are heavily dependent, uh, on space capability
for everything we do.
[David] Engineer Frank Czopek has spent a lifetime
working on satellite systems for the US military.
And one in particular that has been described
as the most important in the world.
This satellite was built
for the global positioning system
known today simply as GPS.
[Engr. Czopek] The major part of any GPS satellite
is the 12, uh, radiating horns
that you see up there, that's what transmit
the GPS signals down to the ground here.
But I also like to point out to you,
there's a big white blob sitting up there,
and that's a nuclear detection payload.
That's really the reason why GPS was built.
It was not for the navigation, but it was for the white blob.
[David] This crucial feature allows the US to check
that other nations are complying
with the Test Ban Treaty.
[woman] Keep left.
[David] But it's GPS's 3D navigation ability
that makes it arguably
the single most indispensable
global system ever designed.
[woman] Recalculating.
[David] Used by an estimated four billion people,
including the US military.
[woman] You have arrived at your destination.
[Gen. Shelton] GPS provides navigation,
it provides timing capability,
it provides geolocation capability.
It's just hard to even to think of, uh,
all the things that are dependent on GPS,
because we just take that service for granted.
[Engr. Czopek] First thing that you got to understand
is that the GPS satellites has no idea where you are.
It takes a GPS receiver to figure out
where you are on the face of the Earth.
How it does it is by listening to timecoded signals
that are being transmitted from the satellite.
[David] A GPS device compares
the timecoded signals it receives
from different satellites in the sky.
It needs three satellite signals
to provide XYZ coordinates.
But the problem is, is that that accuracy
is probably somewhere in the order of tens of meters,
not very good for the things that we do day-to-day.
So what to do to get a more accurate solution,
you have to listen to a fourth satellite.
And that's why when they designed
the constellation, they made sure
that anywhere on the face of the Earth,
you have a minimum of four satellites in view
at any given time.
[David] The technology proved vital
in locating targets and guiding troops
during the Gulf War.
[explosion]
[Engr. Czopek] Everybody refers to Gulf War I
as the Gulf War.
It really in actuality was the first space war.
The first time US military
flexed its space muscle.
[explosion]
[David] GPS proved that space
is a frontier worth fighting for.
A fact that still drives nations
working to develop the next great space weapon.
[explosion]
[David] China, the United States, Russia,
and most recently India,
have all tested missiles
capable of destroying satellites.
But the drawback of this weapon
is that it creates a large amount
of orbital debris,
running the risk of collateral damage
to their own satellites.
The leading edge of anti-satellite technology
really is, um, the things that are not destructive.
Um, and one of those technologies
is a co-orbital anti-satellite weapon.
[David] The co-orbital anti-satellite weapon
originated in Russia.
During the Cold War, the Soviet Union
established a weapons program called Istrebitel Sputnikov,
which translates to satellite killer.
The concept was deadly simple.
To join the satellite in orbit,
and then once close enough,
detonate an explosive charge
to fire a cloud of shrapnel
towards the target.
The Russians carried out many secret tests
of this weapon.
But with the collapse of the Soviet Union,
it disappeared into the shadows of history.
Now, decades later,
scientists are resurrecting the concept,
not as a weapon, but as a valuable solution
to a critical problem.
[ominous music playing]
[David] During the Cold War,
the Soviet Union was developing
a satellite killer that could track and destroy
enemy spacecraft.
Now, German scientist, Dr. Heike Benninghoff
is developing that same
co-orbital satellite technology
for a benign, but important purpose,
solving the problem of loose space junk.
[Dr. Benninghoff] We have incredible
number of satellites
which are no longer operative today.
And the idea is that we build
a kind of service satellite,
um, which can remove non-operative satellites
and, uh, de-orbit them or, um,
a service satellite can also extend
the lifetime of satellites
which, for example, are out of fuel.
So, let me explain it to you.
[David] Dr. Benninghoff wants to build
a robot spacecraft to refuel old satellites
and remove from orbit those that can't be repaired.
This is the orbit of the target.
[David] It would join the satellite in orbit.
Then we end up maybe somewhere here.
[David] And then once close enough...
It captures the target.
[ominous music playing]
[David] This is more than just an idea
on a piece of paper.
At the German Aerospace Center,
significant resources have been invested
in developing the technology required
to make Dr. Benninghoff's dreams a reality.
This advanced program regularly tests technology
that could, in the wrong hands,
make a powerful new space weapon.
So we are now here at the EPOS facility,
the European Proximity Operation Simulator,
located here at German Aerospace Center
in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany.
So the setup here is that we have one robot
which simulates the target satellite.
This is something like a lost satellite
where we have no control over it anymore,
but which, uh, threatens other satellite
in neighboring orbits.
And over here, we have a service satellite.
The service satellite has all the necessary intelligence
to do it without any human interaction.
The only thing is you send some commands
like start the approach and then service satellite
will do nearly everything in an autonomous way.
[David] A suite of cameras and sensors acts
as the spacecraft's eyes
and an on board computer, its brain.
Together, these enable the spacecraft
to auto navigate and guide itself
towards the target.
But the spacecraft would be nothing
without its robot arm.
[man] Okay for flight?
Yes, go ahead.
[man] Are you ready to start with robotic operations?
Yes, of course.
[man] Then you're authorized to do
these robotic events, activities.
[machine whirring]
[David] Once in its reach,
the spacecraft's robot arm grabs the satellite.
Capture completed.
[David] The spacecraft can then carry out repairs
and refuel the satellite.
But this technology designed for good
could be twisted and given a much more sinister purpose.
[Dr. Benninghoff] Of course, this technology
in the wrong hands is always a problem
and always a danger.
[David] The robot arm could attack the satellite.
For example, by ripping off its solar panels
so that it runs out of power.
The satellite killer reborn.
[tense music playing]
[David] But the real concern is that a satellite killer
is already prowling the skies.
We started to see, beginning of 2013,
something interesting happening
with a series of Russian space launches.
[David] The first launch took place
with a powerful Russian space launch vehicle,
the Rokot blasting into the sky.
According to the Russian Ministry of Defense,
it carried three military communication satellites.
[Dr. Weeden] They were launching triplets
of small military communication satellites,
but they started noticing
there was, uh, often a fourth object.
[David] According to Russia's flight manifest,
only three satellites should have been launched,
so Brian's team assumed the fourth object
was inert launch debris.
But then, it started to broadcast a radio signal.
This fourth object was actually another satellite.
[David] What US Space Command had assumed
was a piece of space junk
was in fact a secret Russian spacecraft,
code-named Kosmos 2491.
This ominous mystery quickly doubled,
when, on March 31st 2015,
another rocket launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome.
Again, it carried three official satellites
and an undeclared fourth.
It broadcast the same signal,
and this time, it began to move.
[Dr. Weeden] It started doing maneuvers,
started changing its own orbit.
[ominous music playing]
[David] In 2015, US Space Command
watched with bated breath
as a clandestine Russian satellite
began to move.
The spacecraft maneuvered towards the rocket body
left over from the launch.
- And then it struck. - [radio static]
[David] Was this collision intentional?
Could it be the first act of a satellite killer
preparing to track and harm enemy spacecraft?
We don't know whether the Kosmos-2504
was intended to bump into this rocket body,
but it was not the kind of bump
that I would say is indicative of an attack.
[David] If Brian is correct, the Russian spacecraft
was not a satellite killer, but a spy.
Designed to get up close
and snoop on other satellites.
In 2013, the Chinese military
launched a spacecraft called Shiyan-7
equipped with a robotic arm.
They claimed it was space maintenance technology.
As scientists continued to develop new technologies
to serve as satellites and eradicate space junk,
the US watches closely,
in case that harmless tech turns combative.
[Dr. Grego] When a country like China or Russia
tests maneuvering satellites in orbit,
the United States really gets exercised about it
and really concerned, because these are potentially
really useful weapons.
[Gen. Shelton] As we like to say in the military,
the intent can change overnight.
If somebody decides they're gonna go
to the dark side, so to speak,
then they can use it for nefarious purposes.
[instrumental music playing]
[David] The Outer Space Treaty of 1967
has governed what the military can
and can't do in space.
But it can't keep criminals or rogue nations
from making trouble there.
And now, another arguably more potent weapon
is becoming available.
This weapon can be deployed without a rocket
or missile launch,
so the identity of the attacker
can remain a secret,
but it can still reach satellites
in any orbit.
Dr. Greg Falco is an expert
in cyber security for satellites.
Every satellite, whatever its role in space,
needs to maintain contact with the Earth.
And this makes them intrinsically vulnerable
to what could be the ultimate space weapon,
a cyber-attack.
Right now, we're on Wallops Island
in Virginia and, uh,
in front of us are a number of satellite dishes,
uh, that are communicating with satellites
that are out in space.
These dishes here, uh, are the ground component
of what we call our control system
or our ground stations.
[David] A ground station communicates with satellites
in space, delivering commands.
It is the brain of the satellite system
and a natural target for hackers.
When you hack into a satellite
or if you wanna hack into a satellite,
you generally don't wanna go for necessarily
what's up in space.
Uh, you want to try and control
what is controlling the satellite in space.
You can do a lot of damage if you have
full control and command of the ground station.
[David] Cyberweapon development
is one of the most sensitive
and closely guarded secrets
kept by nation states.
Very few cyber-attacks on satellites are publicized.
But one documented incident occurred in 2008.
[Dr. Falco] Ground control stations
like the ones we're at here,
can track and trace
where different satellites are in orbit.
One of those satellites is Terra.
And Terra, right now,
if you take a look at my screen
is right above South America.
And it moves pretty quickly.
[David] On December 18th, 1999,
NASA launched Terra.
It observes our planet's land, water, and atmosphere
from a height of more than 430 miles.
It's the flagship satellite
of NASA's Earth observing system.
And its mission is purely scientific.
But in 2008, Terra was the target
of a sophisticated cyber-attack.
One of its ground stations was hacked,
and for a short period of time,
the hacker was in complete control
of the satellite.
[Dr. Falco] The first time it was hacked into,
the satellite was only broken into for two minutes, uh,
and command and control was achieved for the satellite.
Um, and the second time it was broken into
was for nine minutes.
And what that tells you is that whoever broke in
the first time found it interesting enough
to break in another time.
[ominous music playing]
[David] When a hacker broke into NASA's satellite Terra
in 2008, they had full control
for a total of 11 minutes.
In principle, they could have done
incredible damage to the satellite.
When you have command and control over a satellite,
you have full feature access
to all of the components of the satellite.
Um, Terra has five sensors on it,
and with those five sensors,
you can do some form of surveillance.
I think that's the most realistic
what the hackers were doing.
But Terra also has propulsion,
uh, and hackers could have taken that propulsion,
and moved the satellite out of orbit.
Uh, they could have also possibly changed
the directionality of some of the sensors,
so that they're not being able to send commands
or receive commands in the proper way.
Uh, they could've even moved how the satellite
is receiving energy from the sun,
um, in terms of the solar panels.
So there's a number of things that could've happened.
Um, I think most likely the surveillance
was the case, though.
[David] Terra survived the cyber-attack.
But other satellites have not been so lucky.
So far, there have been no publicized instances
of this type of cyber-attack against military satellites.
[Gen. Shelton] We're in the United States
doing everything we can
to protect our ground stations.
Our defenses have to stay high,
our paranoia needs to stay high.
Uh, we need to continue to work
the cyber security problem.
[David] As some focus on cyber defense,
others are developing another kind of weapon.
One that science fiction fans
have always thought was destined for space.
In McKinney, Texas,
Evan Hunt has made it his goal
to bring laser weapons to the battlefield.
Welcome to Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems
here in McKinney, Texas.
Raytheon is a global Aerospace and Defense Company
with locations around the world.
We work with those locations to integrate radars
and sensors that we produce here
into military systems
that are deployed by the US
and it's coalition partners.
My area of expertise is high-energy lasers
and that's a very exciting field,
because for many, many decades,
the US Department of Defense and its allies
has been working on this new technology,
trying to transition it out of the lab.
And today, I'm pleased to show you
how we're doing that here in McKinney,
taking lasers and moving them into systems
that are gonna work for the warfighter
in near term.
[sinister music playing]
[David] The concept of a laser weapon is simple.
A laser produces a powerful beam of light.
This beam is focused onto the target,
heating it to a high temperature
until it ultimately melts.
We are here in our, uh,
fiber laser source lab.
This is actually the optical bench
which we use to test the laser
that goes into the, uh,
high-energy laser weapon system.
High-energy laser weapon systems require
very high power and they also require
a very good beam quality
in order to affect targets at long range.
Really neat things about high-energy lasers
is they operate at one micron,
which means they are completely invisible
to the naked eye.
The only time you actually see the laser
is if you're looking in the infrared,
um, with a special camera
and you can actually see the heat signature
that's created on the target you're pointing at.
[upbeat music playing]
[David] Raytheon's prototype laser weapon system
is designed to shoot down drones.
So Sparky, our drone pilot
is actually launching the drone right now.
So you'll see as I move the controller,
the multi-special targeting sensor
actually slews
in the direction of the drone.
But when I have optical track, it's hands off.
That drone can maneuver up and down,
in and out of clutter at pretty significant speeds.
And at any time, I can press a button,
fire the laser,
and an invisible instantaneous beam of light
will start burning a hole in the target.
[David] This prototype could be a stepping stone
to more powerful laser weapons
with greater capabilities.
They may even, in the future,
have the capacity to threaten spacecraft.
[ominous music playing]
[David] Today's laser weapon technology
is rapidly advancing
and it has huge implications
for the future of combat in space.
We've shot down over 90 drones,
uh, at multiple exercises
for the US Air Force and the army.
This particular video, for example,
is engaging a rotor craft done.
The second you fire that laser beam,
you're engaging the target,
you're seeing pieces and parts fall off it,
and the drone falls out of the sky.
Laser energy has the potential
to propagate a very, very long way,
potentially harm airborne targets
or even spaceborne targets such as satellites.
We've actually worked with the laser clearing house,
which is a government entity which essentially allows us
to download information, which shows
where satellites may be flying.
So there's no chance that we could ever fire
on the path of a potential satellite.
[David] Satellites with lasers
already exist in space
such as NASA's ICESat-2 Satellite
which uses a laser to measure the thickness
of sea ice in Antarctica.
And the European Aeolus,
which maps global wind patterns.
But a space-based laser that can damage a satellite
is still out of reach at least for now.
There's a lot of, um, smoke and mirrors around
who's doing what and how hard it is.
The newer technologies that are being investigated
are solid state lasers which, um,
that are powered with electrical power.
But you still need to generate that power,
you don't create power from nothing.
There are real science,
physics, engineering challenges
to get a powerful enough laser on a satellite
to be destructive.
And creating energy in space
is much more difficult than it is on the ground.
Ground-based lasers, uh, those are the ones
that give me the most concern.
And I think laser technology in general
has come a long way in just a few years.
So, I don't think it's probably that many years
before ground-based lasers is gonna be something
we're gonna have to deal with.
[David] It appears increasingly likely
that new powerful space weapons
will soon be in orbit around Earth.
The risk of military conflict in space
and all out space war
has never been greater.
[Dr. Weeden] There's two big concerns.
One is there's a conflict on Earth
that extends into space.
The other is something that happens in space
that could spark conflict on the Earth.
[Dr. Grego] The major space powers
are also nuclear powers.
So anything that provides pathways
to escalation between nuclear powers,
I think it's particularly dangerous.
[Gen. Shelton] I believe everything the United States
is doing ought to be framed
in the sense of deterrence.
If we get to the place
where we're in a Star Wars mentality,
so to speak, um,
uh, I think we've failed as mankind.
[David] For Earth's military space forces,
the story is only just beginning.