I’ve been in and out of here a lot the past few days, so I’m not sure if this has been posted. I saw a report about it on BBC World News last night.

Russia’s ‘Mystery Satellite’

When Vice President Mike Pence laid out the Trump administration’s plan to establish a Space Force as a new branch of the military last Thursday, critics said it was a wasteful and unnecessary step that added bureaucracy for something that didn’t present a threat.

But now the U.S. is voicing concerns and claiming that threat is very real — pointing in particular to a Russian satellite’s “very abnormal behavior.”

The satellite, launched in October 2017, has displayed behavior “inconsistent with anything seen before from” the kind of satellite Russia has said it is, according to Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance Yleem D.S. Poblete.

Instead, without saying it outright, Poblete implied that the object could be a weapon, but said the U.S. cannot know for sure.

“We don’t know for certain what it is, and there is no way to verify it,” Poblete said yesterday in Geneva, Switzerland, at the Conference on Disarmament. Poblete was speaking before the international body for negotiating arms control to express the U.S.’s “serious concerns” about Russia’s push to launch weapons in space, especially anti-satellite weapons that can target satellites that the U.S. relies on for business, scientific and military purposes.

Poblete cited recent comments from several top Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, about the development of weapons in space and Putin unveiling a mobile laser system in March that could shoot down satellites.

“The Russian pursuit of counterspace capabilities is consistent with these other activities and is disturbing given the recent pattern of Russian malign behavior,” she said.