The X-37b is everything you could want in an orbital surveillance, espionage and sabotage platform and it has existed for years…?
A good recent article on the x-37b
https://migflug.com/afterburner/fr/x-37b-space-force-mystery-spaceplane/
Officially, it tests reusable spacecraft technologies and carries experiments for the government. Unofficially, its knack for changing its orbit and vanishing from where trackers expect it has made it a favourite Cold-War-style headache for America’s rivals — a point a former Air Force secretary once made with unusual candour.
“It can do an orbit that looks like an egg, and when it’s close to the Earth it’s close enough to the atmosphere to turn where it is. Our adversaries don’t know where it’s going to come up next, and that drives them nuts. And I’m really glad about that.”
Heather Wilson — former U.S. Secretary of the Air Force (Aspen Security Forum, 2019)
Okay whats it equipped with?
A robotic arm, electronics warfare, signals intelligence equipment and high powered sensors, what else do you want or need?
Rocks.
So
Pretty sure every modern nation has some of those flying about, pretty basic shit for sattelite equipment.
Anything which qualifies as a weapon by most definitions?
No, virtually no other nation possesses this, China likely does to a certain extent and that is probably it.
We are talking about an evolution of the space shuttle program, this is not something anybody possesses that cannot build a space shuttle type vehicle.
You claim no other nation has a spaceplane sattelite with
Telecommunications equipment
Robotic arms
?
A spaceplane not a satellite fool, they are radically different things.
Technically anything capable of achieving orbit is a satellite, but a sub-orbital spaceplane would be drastically less effective at the listed objectives.
It isn’t suborbital, it uses highly eccentric orbits to aerobrake and shift to different ones, not what you are saying at all.
So we agree it’s a satellite.
Like North South Whales
Nothing new under the sun. It was one of the reasons for the space shuttle program and it is rumoured a few secret launches visited soviet satellites.
The OG plan for the Hubble telescope was to bring it back with the space shuttle.
Why is anyone surprised theres now drones in orbit with similar capabilties.
They arent CnC Generals zero hour orbital cannons