Russia’s Secret Plan to Knock Out America’s Satellites

Long before today's fears of anti-satellite warfare, the Soviet Union secretly built a spacecraft with one purpose: to hunt and destroy other satellites in orbit. Born from the Cold War panic that followed the 1960 U-2 spy plane shootdown, the IS (Istrebitel Sputnikov) program pioneered a chillingly simple concept—a maneuverable "kamikaze satellite" that would stalk its target, close the distance, and detonate a fragmentation warhead powerful enough to shred another spacecraft traveling at 17,000 miles per hour. Through years of classified testing, Soviet engineers developed one of history's first operational anti-satellite weapons, proving that space had become a battlefield decades before the creation of the U.S. Space Force. As reconnaissance satellites became essential to military planning, nuclear deterrence, and global communications, the ability to destroy them emerged as a new strategic weapon capable of blinding an enemy before a war even began. This is the story of the Soviet IS program, the world's first operational satellite killer, the Cold War space race that extended far beyond the Moon, and the forgotten weapon that shaped the militarization of Earth's orbit. Source: