Russia has a sustained pattern of harassing US national security space satellites: DIA

A Russian military satellite that got dangerously close to a U.S.-registered one earlier this month is the latest in a string of similar incidents, according to a new report from the Defense Intelligence Agency.The Russian satellite, Cosmos 2612, spent more than two weeks traveling toward ICEYE-X36, a radar satellite the American arm of the Finnish company ICEYE operates, and which supplies imagery to Ukraine’s military.Thomas DiNanno, the undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, said last week: “Russia’s COSMOS 2612 military satellite has been exhibiting threatening behavior by intentionally maneuvering dangerously close to a commercial satellite, behaviors consistent with on-orbit weapons operations.” A Defense Intelligence Agency report released on Monday highlighted several similar incidents that have occurred within the past decade.In 2019, Russia launched Cosmos 2542, and it released another satellite, Cosmos 2543, which began following “a U.S. national security satellite and approached it multiple times at a distance close enough to create potentially dangerous operating conditions,” the report said. In 2020, Cosmos 2543 moved away from the U.S. satellite and fired a projectile into orbit as a part of an anti-satellite weapons test.Russia’s Cosmos satellite series is numbered chronologically.In 2022, Russia launched Cosmos 2558, which also came within range of a U.S. government satellite. In May 2024, Russia launched Cosmos 2576 into the same orbit as another U.S. national security satellite and maneuvered toward it.Then, in February of last year, Russia launched Cosmos 2581, 2582, and 2583. The satellites conducted a series of maneuvers at close proximity once they were in orbit. A Space Force fact sheet said the three satellites “conducted a series of maneuvers that enabled close approaches of under 1 km. Operations of this type could be used to threaten or collect on U.S. satellites.”In May 2025, a couple of months later, Russia launched Cosmos 2588, and it conducted maneuvers within 60 miles of a U.S. government satellite.In May of this year, Russia executed fuel-intensive maneuvers with Cosmos 2610-2613 — including the one that tracked a U.S. satellite earlier this month — to get closer to a western commercial radar satellite used by Ukraine as well, the Space Force fact sheet said.Russia is also seeking to develop an anti-satellite capability using a new satellite that would be designed to carry a nuclear weapon, and that would pose a threat to all satellites and the services they provide to the world.Space is increasingly becoming a contested domain for the U.S. and Russia, with China also expanding its space capabilities.China, for its part, has tripled its intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance satellite fleet since 2018 to more than 510; has more than tripled its space launches per year over the past decade with 22 launches in 2016 and 93 in 2025; and Beijing has also deployed more than nine times as many satellites in orbit per year during the past eight years, going from 40 in 2016 to 384 in 2025.The DIA report notes there is “no indication that China plans to actively test or develop a nuclear [anti-satellite] weapon for use in space,” unlike Russia.HOW HEAD OF ARMY’S SPACE COMMAND BECAME A ‘HUGE BELIEVER’ ON HIGH-ALTITUDE SURVEILLANCE BALLOONSLast month, the secretary of the Air Force, Troy Meink, publicly confirmed the U.S. has “on-orbit space control” weapons, while Gen. Douglas A. Schiess, the Chief of Space Operations, said Guardians “operate on-orbit weapons that can defend the Joint Force against space-enabled attacks.”