Experts reveal what Pentagon’s new space weapons could look like
Experts reveal what Pentagon’s new space weapons could look like
Katie Pavlich Wed, September 16, 2026 at 12:52 PM UTC
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(NewsNation) — The Pentagon has confirmed the United States now has space-control weapons in orbit, but officials are staying deliberately silent on what those weapons are and how they work.
Former Navy SEAL and author Jack Carr said the silence is intentional, but the outlines of what's possible are not directly secret. Carr researched similar technology for his novel, "Red Sky Mourning," and pointed to a real-world program called the hypersonic and ballistic tracking space sensor program, along with what's known as the tracking layer.
"A constellation of low-Earth orbit satellites that would have the ability to both track launches and then destroy those incoming missiles at the same time," Carr said on "Katie Pavlich Tonight," describing how the system would work.
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Carr said concepts like this often start out sounding like science fiction before becoming real.
"A lot of the times these things start in the imagination and then come to fruition in reality," he said.
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Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. David Deptula, dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, said the Pentagon's decision to withhold specifics is a deliberate strategy, not an oversight.
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"There's tremendous value in an adversary knowing that we possess a capability without knowing precisely what that capability can do," Deptula said. "Uncertainty contributes to deterrence."
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Carr also linked the new weapons to the missile defense system known as the "Golden Dome," first announced by President Donald Trump in early January 2025. He said few details have been released about it either, but it's expected to rely on the same kind of low-Earth orbit satellite network, built to both track threats and destroy them.
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Carr traced the broader idea back to 1983, when President Ronald Reagan announced the Strategic Defense Initiative, pairing early missile defense concepts with stealth technology.
"Weapons like this have been in the works for a long time," Carr said.
Deptula said the U.S. holds a technology edge in space over rivals like China and Russia, but not necessarily the production capacity. He said China, in particular, is a "production monolith," and said the U.S. military needs to scale up to match.
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