Russia develops satellite to carry nuclear weapon, US agency says
The US assessment describes June jamming that disrupted US aircraft and shipping near Hormuz, and warns a nuclear blast in orbit could disable thousands of satellites.
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Russia is developing a satellite designed to carry a nuclear weapon into Earth’s orbit, the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) says in an assessment quoted by Fox News. The finding concerns development, rather than deployment or a decision to attack. DIA warns that a detonation could rapidly destroy or impair thousands of satellites worldwide.
US forces use satellites to communicate, navigate ships and aircraft, track enemy forces, detect missile launches and guide precision weapons. DIA says Russia views that reliance as a vulnerability to exploit during conflict.
DIA released the third edition of Challenges to Security in Space on October 26, 2026, following editions in 2019 and 2022. The War Zone said the unclassified assessment draws largely on publicly available information, has a July 2026 information cutoff and covers China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.
Interference near Hormuz
DIA says jamming near the Strait of Hormuz in June disrupted US aircraft and shipping vessels. DIA says the United States and Iran also took offensive actions against each other’s space capabilities during Operation Epic Fury in 2026 to disrupt military operations on both sides. The assessment does not detail those operations.
DIA attributes jamming of satellite communications and navigation around the strait to Iran, as described by Air & Space Forces Magazine. That broader attribution does not expressly identify who caused the June disruption.
Jamming interferes with satellite signals without necessarily damaging the satellite. Lasers can also temporarily blind a satellite’s sensors. These effects can be reversible; attacks that physically damage or destroy spacecraft cause lasting losses. DIA describes a range of threats from temporary disruption through physical attacks to a nuclear detonation.
What a nuclear detonation could do
DIA’s nuclear warning concerns government and commercial satellites, not only US military systems. A detonation could disrupt communications, navigation, weather forecasting and national-security services. Radiation belts left by the explosion could persist for years and damage satellites that survived the initial event.
In February 2024, Mike Turner, then chairman of the US House Intelligence Committee, called for intelligence about a serious national-security threat to be declassified. The threat was later revealed to concern a Russian nuclear anti-satellite capability.
The Outer Space Treaty, which entered into force in 1967, prohibits states parties from placing nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in orbit or otherwise stationing them in space. It does not generally prohibit conventional weapons in orbit.
Analysis
China’s existing systems and projected weapons
DIA says China already practices jamming satellite communications and navigation during exercises and has ground-based lasers capable of disrupting or damaging satellites in low-Earth orbit. Chinese military thinkers identify surveillance, communications, navigation and missile-warning satellites as targets for attacks intended to deprive an enemy of information and communications.
The assessment also identifies Chinese jammers in orbit for the first time. Its forecast for directed-energy weapons—systems that use concentrated energy, such as lasers or microwaves—is conditional. DIA says China may field space-based systems and more powerful ground-based systems capable of threatening satellites in higher orbits by the late 2020s.
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