The United States criticized China on Thursday for destroying an obsolete weather satellite in orbit in an anti-satellite weapons test which runs counter to the ``spirit of cooperation’’ in civilian space exploration.

The Associated Press (AP) reported that the Bush administration has kept a lid on the test for more than a week as it weighed its significance.

AP quoted analysts as saying that China’s weather satellites would travel at about the same altitude as U.S. spy satellites, so the test represented an indirect threat to the U.S. defense system.

``The United States believes China’s development and testing of such weapons is inconsistent with the spirit of cooperation that both countries aspire to in the civil space area,’’ AP quoted National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe as saying.

``We and other countries have expressed our concern to the Chinese,’’ he said.

According to the news agency, Lt. Gen. Michael Maples, the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said in his annual address to Congress last week that China and Russia are the ``primary states of concern’’ regarding military space programs.

``Several countries continue to develop capabilities that have the potential to threaten U.S. space assets, and some have already deployed systems with inherent anti-satellite capabilities, such as satellite-tracking laser range-finding devices and nuclear-armed ballistic missiles,’’ he said in his written testimony on Jan. 11, the same day China's test was conducted.

The test, first reported by Aviation Week, destroyed the satellite by hitting it with a kinetic kill vehicle launched aboard a ballistic missile.

AP said President Bush signed an order last October asserting the United States' right to deny adversaries access to space for hostile purposes. As part of the first revision of U.S. space policy in nearly 10 years, the policy also said the U.S. would oppose the development of treaties or other restrictions that seek to prohibit or limit U.S. access to or use of space.

AP said that what drove China to act now remains a mystery.

Bloomberg quoted Rep. Edward Markey, chairman of the House subcommittee on telecommunications and the Internet, as saying that the Chinese satellite was stationed about 500 miles above Earth, and its debris may become a problem for other satellites.

Aviation Week and Space Technology reported the Feng Yun 1C polar orbit weather satellite was hit by a ``kinetic kill vehicle’’ on board a ballistic missile launched at or near the Xichang Space Center.

Bloomberg, a leading news agency specializing in business and financial news, quoted Markey as saying that a cloud of debris may result from the destruction of the Chinese satellite, threatening vital U.S. space-based machines.

These include a constellation of 66 communications satellites on which commercial and military clients rely, he said.

In 2003, China emerged as the third country in the world, after the U.S. and Russia, to send a person into space aboard its own rocket. China plans to send a robot to the moon to fetch lunar soil by 2017