I’M NOT LOSING THE SPACE RACE U ARE :angery:

Spy Satellites are military assets/hardware same as a ship or plane or a CIA drone. They cost a lot of money, take a bit of time to replace and have classified hardware and software running on them. (They are managed in the US by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) which coordinates data and activity between the NSA, CIA, and military as well as theoretically a few other entities).

There is no precedent because nothing in this realm has ever been done. It’s entirely up to the party whose satellite is grabbed to decide how they want to respond and frame the situation. Obviously it’s not on the level of killing a bunch of people in an attack but it is an attack on an investment and could be seen as attempting to blind an enemy and transgressing against neutral space (neutral space that the US has insistently been militarizing against everyone’s wishes). They could declare it an attack and act of war and do what they want with that. They could also consider it an espionage/intelligence act and respond tit-for-tat in a limited capacity against the other party’s space assets with or without telling the public. My gut tells me that the US would scream bloody murder at the UN and in front of the press, whip up hysterics, claim the acting party had sullied hallowed international rules and norms and start making all kinds of demands before then retaliating in a limited tit-for-tat way but also slapping on sanctions because sanctions are always a tool they reach for and still have a position to impose them.

The thing is, the entire point of the US space force (the newest branch of the military) has to be seen as something to tamper with space in a way to gain US advantage while undermining the notions of neutrality and non-militarization of space. There was a story in the press where breathless intelligence jerks had tried to approach a Chinese satellite with some sort of US asset and been amazed at how quickly and evasively it maneuvered away. Have no disillusions, the space force’s primary goal right now is likely breaking into Chinese, Russian, Indian spy and communications satellites and implanting NSA hardware to enable taking control of them (including destroying them in times of war) as well as to peek in on what they’re doing and potentially even attempting to compromise ground station networks. Hypothetically they’re forming up a space marines division for fighting in space but such fighting would be against Chinese or Russian soldiers either during war trying to take out US space assets or trying to protect their own assets against the US.

Probably not unless it is a military satellite