Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

U.S. Deploys Satellite Jamming System

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the i-can't-hear-you-nya-nya-nya dept.

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.

23 of 342 comments (clear)

  1. Thin ice by fembots · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This whole control of space thing is approaching the thin line between annoyed and pissed.

    While USAF claims this "ground-based jammer uses electromagnetic radio frequency energy to knock out transmissions on a temporary and reversible basis, without frying components", it will only take one mistake (and it's not that unusual) to fry someone's $500mil baby.

    If other countries even dare to think about developing a similar jammer to "neutralize" US's satellite communication and its space-based capabilities, it's likely that US will simply launch another pre-emptive attack to destroy those jammers in these countries.

    --
    Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
    1. Re:Thin ice by nightsweat · · Score: 5, Funny

      $500 million baby? I can get you one for $143.50 on the Internet.

      --

      the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
    2. Re:Thin ice by ryturner · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Your post indicates thats you think wars should be a fair fight. Personally, I want any war the US is in to be very unfair. The point is it win.

    3. Re:Thin ice by Tackhead · · Score: 4, Insightful
      > Right... just like the US pre-emptively attacked Russia because they build GPS jammers. Now if a country started *using* (rather than just developing) such a system, I would agree with your position.

      And because any ground-based emitter of EM is going to show up as a pretty big honking target when it's turned on...

      a) blowing up the jammer is not a pre-emptive attack, and
      b) your jammer will get blowed up real good, real quick.

      Keep in mind that part b) applies to both sides in the conflict. If you're fighting an adversary capable of launching satellites, you're (by definition) fighting an adversary capable of detecting and lobbing anti-radiation missiles at any EM emitter you own that's more powerful than a microwave oven.

    4. Re:Thin ice by ajs · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This whole control of space thing is approaching the thin line between annoyed and pissed.

      Ah... yes, well I'll assume you meant that YOU are getting annoyed.

      While USAF claims this [...] jammer [...is...] temporary and reversible [...] it will only take one mistake (and it's not that unusual) to fry someone's $500mil baby.

      How often does this particular jamming technology fry satellites? Really, how often? Heck, you don't even know what this *is*, must less what its failure modes are. ANY complaint about this technology must be on the grounds of lack of information (kind of strange to complain about THIS instead of the dozens of other, far more problematic items that the US military refuses to discuss) or on the grounds that the US feels it has the right to unilaterally develop technology to disable other country's communications (again, I'd start with the MONITORING of communications which is ONGOING rather than the chance that the US MIGHT block communications in the future).

      Anything else is arm waving.

      If other countries even dare to think about developing a similar jammer to "neutralize" US's satellite communication and its space-based capabilities, it's likely that US will simply launch another pre-emptive attack to destroy those jammers in these countries.

      Doubtful. Of the countries that have the capabilities to do so, only one is not an ally, and I don't think we'd invade China over THIS.

    5. Re:Thin ice by kin_korn_karn · · Score: 5, Informative

      "Anti-radiation missile" is a military term for anti-radar missiles like the Shrike and HARM, or for EU types the ALARM. Doesn't have anything to do with nuclear radiation.

    6. Re:Thin ice by demachina · · Score: 4, Insightful

      One of the more interesting uses for jamming satellites coming real soon now is Galileo, the European/Chinese GPS constellation, coming on line in a couple of years. The U.S. is most unhappy that there will be a GPS system with 1 meter resolution, with wider coverage, they don't control, because it will break their monopoly on GPS guided weapons and navigation during a conflict unless they have the capbility to jam it. The U.S. GPS system can be selectively crippled/encrypted by the U.S. to deny its use to its enemies.

      I wouldn't be surprised if the U.S. is making this threat public to send a signal to the Europe/China that if they proceed with a GPS system free of U.S. domination the U.S. is going to counter with the technology necessary to cripple it.

      China's Xinhua has a pretty biting commentary on the subject that appeared on SpaceDaily a couple days ago.

      It is a further indicator that as the U.S. continues to seek its global empire and world dominion it is going to continue to place itself against and at odds with the entire rest of the world.

      Apparently only the U.S. is allowed to decide who can use and deploy basic technology.

      --
      @de_machina
    7. Re:Thin ice by G00F · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Apparently only the U.S. is allowed to decide who can use and deploy basic technology.

      You seam to think people in the USA want to dictate to the rest of the world how to do things. No, actually what happens is the people who want to dictate to the rest of the world, find it easiest to do so through USA.

      Such as the skull and bones, they are a power out of Europe. And other cartel organizations like the riaa/mpaa have existed long before USA, and each country has their own version of the same thing today. So quit blaming USA for everything. We just have a flaw that is being exploited, that is fixable only by the fact we have the right own guns.

      --
      The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive
  2. Way to go! by rearl · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "The device appears to have been put into service considerably earlier than had been projected by the Air Force as recently as February.

    At that time, a long-range planning document, dubbed the Transformation Flight Plan, said such a system would let the United States by 2010 "deny and disrupt an adversary's space-based communications and early warning" of attack."

    That's the way to beat the enemy to the punch - make them think you're 5+ years away from ready, then DEPLOY!

  3. Sounds familiar... by Sensible+Clod · · Score: 5, Funny

    Maybe this was a beta version?

    --

    The difference between spam and poop is that you don't have to dig through septic tanks looking for real food. -- Me
  4. I would have gotten 1st post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    But i suspect my wifi was temporarily jammed

  5. "Spies like us" by Stonent1 · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'm having a mental flashback of the scene where the anti-missile system hits an MTV satellite and the girl's TV explodes, where she exclaims "Awesome!"

  6. Cool! by lottameez · · Score: 5, Funny

    I think the USAF could easily recoup their investment if they allowed people to "vote" TV channels off of satellite comms. $1 a minute to jam the signal. No more QVC, goodbye to MTV-trash - yippee!

    --
    Yeah? Well I think you're overrated too.
  7. Rasberry! by Supero100 · · Score: 5, Funny


    "Raspberry! I hate Raspberry!"

  8. Probably old school by dougmc · · Score: 5, Interesting
    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 ...

  9. Commercial satellites? by spooky_nerd · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What's to keep people from encrypting communications, and using commercial satellite systems? In fact, you could put up a satellite system and market it for commercial use. Then, when you use it to transmit your nefarious plans, the US won't want to take it down because it would be too large of a disruption to US businesses.

  10. tool of terrorism? by davidwr · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Two relatively expensive terrorist tools I'd like to hear more about:

    1) ground-based satelite-destroyers.
    2) space-based satelite-destroyers.

    Can you imagine the damage to the American psyche if all the TV- and other-entertainment- satellites were knocked out at once? There'd be great moaning and gnashing of teeth while America waited a few months or years for replacements to go up.

    Imagine if that happened in the middle of the Superbowl?

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
    1. Re:tool of terrorism? by Shihar · · Score: 5, Funny

      Look, when 9/11 happened the Americans went nuts. They ended up whacking off two nations. Think about it. The American response to two buildings being destroy was to take out two ENTIRE NATIONS. That is like responding to two guys getting shot by taking out two towns. So, you understand the American prepensely to overreact a little.

      Now, considering the American psyche, what kind of fucking idiot would you have to be to take out all American TV. You thought they were on a rampage after two buildings fell? Shit, if someone took out American TV, especially during the Superbowl I would go look for the nearest fallout shelter and come out 100,000 years later to open a very profitable glass business. Why glass you ask? Because that kind of nuclear holocaust, that is all that is left.

      Blow up the Statue of Liberty, the White House, and Wall Street, but for the sake of the rest of world, leave the American heart and soul intact and leave TV alone.

  11. I'm not sure this is a great idea by HangingChad · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Definitely some cool technology, but lets think about who would be most threatened by it? I don't think Crapassistan has any satellites to threaten, but the Russians and the Chinese would.

    For the moment the Russians have a far more capable space program than we do and the Chinese have a bigger industrial base. We can eventually beat the Russians with technology, but not in the short term. But with all our collective money funding the war in Iraq, we would not be able to out-produce or out-spend the Chinese.

    I think all it will end up doing is spurring Russia and China into matching the threat. Hopefully we don't find out the hard way that their space capabilities have improved beyond our ability to catch up.

    --
    That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
  12. Possible scenario by PornMaster · · Score: 4, Funny

    Michael Powell: You've got to jam the Sirius satellites, Scotty, Howard Stern is corrupting the youth of America!
    Scotty: I'm givin' er all she's got, Chairman...

    --
    500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
  13. oh boy by TubeSteak · · Score: 4, Funny
    Oh wow is this going to piss off DirecTV.

    Or maybe this is the govt's answer to all those people hacking satellite cards.
    No TV For YOU

    --
    [Fuck Beta]
    o0t!
  14. Likely just a receiver overloading device by LM741N · · Score: 4, Informative

    Have you ever gotten those places on your FM dial, where it sounds like 10 different stations are coming in at once? That is intermodulation distortion. Very large signals competing with other very large signals. This is most likely what this "weapon" does. Just overloads the telemetry, data channels, etc of a satellite receiver. It takes alot of current to produce overload resistant receivers, and current is always at a premium on satellites, so I would expect weak receiver front ends that are subject to this ground interference.

  15. Tactics and strategy in electronic warfare by Sai+Babu · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Jamming is a traditional tactic in electroninc warfare.

    The capability of locating an uplink based on signals received from a satellite is of much greater strategic value then destruction of the satellite. This is true for all engaged parties.

    So why jam at all?
    Suppose something like a cruise missle with partial guidance from a satellite is on it's way to your ship. Ideally you would want to co-opt the satellite and take some control. However, when the time comes, the last thing you want is the correct information to reach the missle. Here jamming makes sense. Without jamming capability a situation might arise in which the strategic value
    to you, of your oppositions satellite, is greater than the value of your ship!

    Come on /.ers You guys play strategy and tactics games all the time...

    --
    Now I'm the grandest Tiger in the Jungle!