U.S. Deploys Satellite Jamming System

CNN has an article about a ground-based satellite jamming system that "uses electromagnetic radio frequency energy to knock out transmissions on a temporary and reversible basis, without frying components". Is this just another old school EM jamming technique, or something new? Of course they won't say, citing "operational security" concerns.

Comments

Probably old school

[dougmc]

Is this just another old school EM jamming technique, or something new?

Old school jamming techniques will be quite effective. You find out what the uplink frequency band is, and hit the satellite with a few thousand watts on that band using a high gain antenna. No commands will be received while your jamming is in effect.

Now, jamming the downlink is harder, but if you hit the satellite with enough power on any band, it'll freak out. With a highly directional antenna, you could even take out only a specific satellite.

Satellites do have to deal with ionizing radiation and can't have enough shielding to totally block it, so they're equipped to reset themselves when they get `stuck' because some IC got hit with a stray alpha particle -- because it's not *if* it will happen, it's *when*.

Of course, if you hit the satellite with enough power, you may actually damage it. If that happens, you just play dumb. Sure, it may have happened while the satellite was over the US (or a US base, or US ship), but that was just a coincidence, right?

I guess a new school jamming technique might be to actually hit it with ionizing radiation (typically X and gamma rays, and high energy electrons and protons (often with some neutrons in the form of an alpha particle) but these are generally attenutated greatly by the atmosphere (and the charged particles diverted by our magnetic field), so this would be hard to do from the ground. But I guess if you can make it strong enough, or do it from a tall mountain/plane flying above most of our atmosphere ...