Peter Suciu
The Space Force is interested in two new anti-satellite weapons: the “Meadowlands” and the “Remote Monitor Terminal,” both of which are built to jam enemy satellite communications.
The sixth and newest branch of the United States military has been developing new systems to jam adversarial satellites. The United States Space Force could soon field “two new weapons,” Bloomberg reported last week. Each was developed to “jam” intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) satellites operated by Russia and China.
America and China Are Preparing for Satellite Warfare
The United States already operates a “Counter Communications System,” a transportable (but not exactly “mobile”) electronic warfare system that can be employed to temporarily jam and disrupt satellite communications. The CCS Block 10.2 ground-based system achieved Initial Operating Capability in March 2020. It was designed to deny an adversary access to a space-based communications platform without permanently disabling its infrastructure.
The new systems, dubbed “Meadowlands” and “Remote Modular Terminal,” will further bolster the jamming capabilities. Unlike the bulky CCS, these two platforms can be more easily “dispersed worldwide,” and potentially even operated remotely, the Bloomberg report added.
China currently has around 1,200 satellites in orbit, and the majority of those would be valid military targets in a confrontation, even if they have civilian uses as well. Bloomberg cited the Space Force’s unclassified “Space Threat Fact Sheet,” which was last updated in September; the service notes that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) operates more than 510 ISR satellites, equipped with “optical, multispectral, radar and radio frequency sensors.”
Blinding the satellites in the event of war would be crucial to protecting key US assets, notably carrier strike groups, from the eyes in the sky.
“Intelligence suggests the PLA likely sees counter-space operations as a means to deter and counter U.S. military intervention in a regional conflict,” Gen. Chance Saltzman, commander of the US Space Force, said during the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission in April.
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