The private company wants to use retired F-4 Phantom II fighters as satellite carrier launchers.

Above: AI-created image where F-4 shoots miniature satellites. 

The private company called Starfighters International plans to use retired F-4 Phantom II fighters as miniature satellite carrier launchers. Today that company operates with antique F-104 fighters. But the F-4 could give it a new boost. 

Those jet fighters can fly near the edge of space and release the satellite-carrier rocket. The idea is taken from the USAF ASM-135 ASAT weapon. F-15 takes to the edge of the atmosphere. There is also the possibility that the ASAT can be mounted to retired SR-71 and the next-generation SR-72 systems. That gives those systems the ultimate capacity to launch the ASAT weapons against the suspected orbital space weapons. If those weapons are in orbit, that requires ultra-fast reactions. 

In those missions, Phantoms can use underwing auxiliary rockets that allow them to rise higher. There is also the possibility of improving those aircraft afterburners or turbines so that they can have a front iris that denies the air impulse to the front. 

Then the system will inject oxygen from underwing tanks to those rocket turbines. The system can maneuver using flaps that can change the rocket's exhaust gas direction. In wild visions, those turbine rockets can also have an iris in the back. When those engines send thrust to the front. That turns them into a brake engine. 

The point is that the same systems that shoot miniature satellites can also shoot ASAT(Ati-Satellite) weapons against their targets. Satellite carrier aircraft don't need stealth technology. The aircraft can operate as a manned remote-, or AI-controlled unmanned system. If the plane has no pressurized cabin, it can fly at higher altitudes. 

F-15 launches ASAT. 

The problems with private space companies are also concerning. The major problem is that those companies allow access to space for private actors; that is not a bad thing. The problem is the actors who operate behind those private contractors and companies. Things like Chinese, Russian, or North Korean intelligence can also give financial investments to those companies. 

The situation is similar to the cases, where the CIA operated through the  "Air America"  and "United Fruit" corporations and delivered weapons to Anti-communist actors in Burma and Laos during the Vietnam War and South- and Middle America, non-governmental alliances. 

We know that people like Russian and North Korean intelligence officials can take a model from the CIA. And they can also establish cover-up corporations for their operations. They can make that thing through oligarchs and then they can hire Western engineers to make rockets and other kinds of things for them. Those actors can play South Korean businessmen. And there is the possibility that hired developers don't know who is behind those investors. 

All orbital rockets offer the possibility to launch orbital nuclear weapons to orbital trajectories. Those systems can be detonated on low orbital and they can destroy multiple satellites. Or those systems can also dive into the atmosphere and detonate entire cities. Space systems can also carry and deliver drone swarms to target areas. And that is one of the biggest threats. 

The extensions for that kind of thing can be the companies are space mercenaries. There North Korea and other actors will develop technology that can cause high risk for all kinds of security. In the worst scenarios, the hostile actors can shoot even nuclear missiles from those private corporation's sites. In those scenarios, the launch site that is located on some remote island will be taken by hostile forces. Then those forces will transport nuclear weapons to that site and then shoot those weapons against their targets. 

https://starfighters.net/#ops

https://theaviationist.com/2025/03/11/celestial-eagle-flight/

https://www.twz.com/air/f-4-phantoms-sought-by-private-space-launch-company

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASM-135_ASAT