Space warfare

Space warfare is combat in which one or more belligerents are situated in outer space. The scope of space warfare therefore includes ground-to-space warfare, such as attacking satellites from the Earth; space-to-space warfare, such as satellites attacking satellites; and space-to-ground warfare, such as satellites attacking Earth-based targets. Space warfare in fiction is thus sub-genre and theme of science fiction, where it is portrayed with a range of realism and plausibility. In the real world, international treaties are in place that attempt to regulate conflicts in space and limit the installation of space weapon systems, especially nuclear weapons.

As of 2024, no large-scale battle or war is known to have taken place in space, though a number of single-instance tests and demonstrations had been performed. On October 31, 2023, during the 2023 Israel-Hamas War, Israel's Arrow 2 system intercepted a ballistic missile launched from Yemen by Houthi rebels; this successful interception occurred outside of Earth's atmosphere thus making it the first recorded practical instance of space warfare during an active conflict.

From 1985 to 2002 there was a United States Space Command, which in 2002 merged with the United States Strategic Command, leaving the United States Space Force (formerly Air Force Space Command until 2019) as the primary American military space force. The Russian Space Force, established on August 10, 1992, which became an independent section of the Russian Armed Forces on June 1, 2001, was replaced by the Russian Aerospace Defence Forces starting December 1, 2011, but was reestablished as a component of the Russian Aerospace Forces on August 1, 2015. In 2019 India conducted a test of the ASAT missile making it the fourth country with that capability, and in April of that year, the Indian Armed Forces established the Defence Space Agency.