via National Interest
While Putin might not attack US or NATO satellites, he most certainly is quietly preparing the battlefield for whenever he may want to.
A co-orbital satellite is a nasty little machine. Nicknamed “Space Stalkers” (with good reason), a co-orbital satellite is tiny and fast. It closely follows sensitive satellites belonging to other countries, such as the United States, with intent to damage or destroy those systems when commanded to by the ground operators of the Space Stalkers.
These systems are dual-use in nature. During peacetime, they can be classified as “repair” satellites or simply surveillance satellites. In wartime, though, these co-orbital systems can do extreme amounts of damage.
One system in particular is giving the strategic planners at the Pentagon a high degree of indigestion. That’s Russia’s newest satellite in its low-Earth orbit (LEO) Cosmos series, which is now orbiting dangerously near a covert US government satellite. As a result, the US defense community fears that the Russians are preparing to use this Cosmos co-orbital Space Stalker in what would amount to a space “Pearl Harbor.”
Ok. This is crazy. I can only hope that with awareness we're developing countermeasures. Additionally I hope that we have our own systems capable of taking out threat or recon systems.
Lastly it makes me wonder. The USAF canceled the E-7 Wedgetail in favor of space based systems. I'm assuming they did this with knowledge of this threat.
Would kinda suck if we were engaged in a war with China and suddenly every communications, recon and intel sat were knocked off line.
