I read about this for the first time today: back in the 80s, the
Soviets shot a laser beam and hit the space shuttle Challenger. It
was only minor damage, yet made a powerful statement.
Peter Schweizer's book, Reagan's War. There, he recounts the
following, taking place during the 1982 "seven hour nuclear war":
Later, the U.S. space shuttle Challenger was cruising the heavens in a
tight orbit around the earth at an altitude of some 365 kilometers,
conducting a variety of scientific tests and observing celestial
bodies in space. Down on earth, at a massive Soviet military research
facility at Sary Shagan, Soviet officials were tracking the shuttle's
progress with an advanced Argun large-phased-array radar. When the
shuttle came into range, they fired a thin beam of light—a megawatt
laser—directly at Challenger. The onboard communications began to
malfunction and the crew felt some physical discomfort. Later, when
the shuttle returned to earth and NASA officials determined what had
happened, Reagan filed a strongly worded protest to Moscow.