According to sources familiar with the information, this type of weapon could compromise a wide range of commercial and government satellites that the entire world depends on to talk on cellphones, make payments and surf the Internet.
Russia is trying to develop a space-based nuclear weapon capable of destroying the satellites, creating massive energy waves when detonated and disabling the vast array of commercial and government satellites the world relies on to talk, pay bills and roam. Internet, according to three sources familiar with U.S. intelligence on the weapon.
The sources gave CNN a more detailed knowledge of what Russia was doing — and the threat it posed — than the U.S. government had previously disclosed.
Rep. Mike Turner, Republican of Ohio, chairman of the House Information Services Committee, sparked a frenzy in Washington on Wednesday when he released a statement saying his committee “has information about a serious national security threat.” On Friday, President Joe Biden publicly confirmed that Turner was referring to a new Russian anti-satellite nuclear capability — but the White House steadfastly refuses to discuss the matter, citing the classified nature of the information.
The weapon is still being developed and not yet in orbit, Biden administration officials have emphasized publicly. But if used, officials say it would cross a dangerous line in the history of nuclear weapons and seriously disrupt daily life in ways that are hard to predict.
This type of new weapon — commonly known to military space experts as a nuclear EMP — would create a pulse of electromagnetic energy and a flood of highly charged particles that could disrupt other satellites orbiting Earth.
On Friday, Biden publicly asserted that “there is no nuclear threat to the United States or any other part of the world as Russia is doing now.”
“Everything they do and/or do has to do with satellites and space and the potential to damage those satellites,” he said.
For years, the Defense Department and intelligence community have followed Russian efforts to develop a wide range of anti-satellite weapons, including EMP.
There has been a stream of intelligence reports in recent months regarding Russia's efforts to develop nuclear-powered anti-satellite capabilities, a defense official told CNN.
But Russia has recently made progress in its efforts to develop a nuclear EMP – a highly dangerous technology.
“Our general knowledge of Russia's need for this type of capability is 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 more confidently assess precisely how Russia is pursuing him,” he added.
The intelligence community, Biden said, “has found the ability to launch a system in space that could theoretically do something harmful” but that “hasn't happened yet.”
“This is not a new concept, as a concept it goes back to the end of the Cold War,” said one US official. But, he added, “any possible PEM device in orbit is a big fear [é] This would render a large portion of certain orbits unusable”, “dangerous to the new satellites we are trying to replace or repair existing satellites”, creating a minefield of decommissioned satellites.
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, as designed, would affect GPS and nuclear command-and-control satellites, which operate in higher orbits than the vast swath of commercial and government satellites in low-Earth orbit. These large satellites are designed to be invulnerable to a nuclear blast, but a former Pentagon space official told CNN that they “may be vulnerable” to an EMP depending on how close they are to an EMP, their age and the size of the blast.
“Hardcore explorer. Extreme communicator. Professional writer. General music practitioner. Prone to fits of apathy.”