Army gears up to ‘engage’ enemy surveillance satellites

The push: Col. Joe Mroszczyk of Army Space and Missile Defense Command's TID-SS says the Army wants ground-based capability to directly "engage" adversary surveillance satellites, framing it as an extension of land forces delivering effects across domains, following US Space Command's push for space superiority.

The constraints: Kinetic anti-satellite strikes are ruled out under US policy against creating long-lived debris, pointing the Army toward non-kinetic directed-energy weapons like lasers (to dazzle optical/infrared sensors) and high-power microwaves (to disrupt synthetic aperture radar), which SPACECOM's Lt. Gen. Rick Zellmann favours for low cost-per-shot.

Stratospheric warfare: The Army is also expanding high-altitude balloon experimentation, seen as closer to fielding than fragile fixed-wing platforms, with funding in the FY27 budget for an initial capability and interest in launching drones from balloons to extend payload reach into contested battlespace.