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DTN 180: The US Has Weapons in Space

Plus: Starship heads to orbit, DoE bets on open AI models for science, Antares wins $161M DoD contract for space nuclear power, researchers create a mouse with a partly human brain, Houthis using Claude Code for missile guidance software, and more.

18 Sep 2026 — 7 min read

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It’s official: The U.S. has weapons in space

“In a first for the U.S. Space Force since its inception six years ago, the military branch has announced the deployment of weapons in space.

Speaking at the Air and Space Forces Association’s annual Air, Space & Cyber Conference on Monday, Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink declared that the U.S. has placed offensive technology into orbit, though he did not disclose any details about the weapons.

“We are increasing readiness against existing threats, and the United States has on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the Joint Force against hostile adversary action,” he said.

Although this is the first such acknowledgement from any global power, experts have long suspected space weapons are already a reality. In recent years, Russia has allegedly jammed communications satellites across Europe, and U.S. intelligence agencies have accused Russia of planning to put nuclear weapons in space. China, too, has demonstrated advanced capabilities for tracking and targeting satellites; these capabilities include a reusable space plane, similar to the U.S.’s X-37B, that could rendezvous with and capture adversarial spacecraft. Both Russia and China—as well as the U.S.—have a history of antisatellite missile tests and “cat and mouse” orbital encounters in which spacecraft maneuver to shadow or threaten others.

The U.S. deployment is a matter of necessity, Meink said in a press conference on Monday.” (via Scientific American)

“The US has flown one nuclear reactor in space—SNAP-10A in 1965. More than sixty years later, Antares would like to make it two.

The nuclear microreactor startup announced today that it won a $161M DoD contract to advance nuclear power for space—which Antares says is the largest current DoD space nuclear award.

Antares and its Mark-0 microreactor made history in June, becoming the first private company to bring an advanced reactor to criticality—when a nuclear fission chain reaction becomes self-sustaining—under the Department of Energy's Reactor Pilot Program.

Fresh off a $470M Series C in July, Antares is looking to run its electricity-producing Mark-1 reactor for more than six months in 2027.

"We've been building toward this moment since the day we founded Antares, before there was a program or a policy or a check," Antares cofounder and CEO Jordan Bramble said. (via Payload)