UK military jams foreign satellites to shield its nuclear submarines
UK military jamming other nations' satellites to defend itself, BBC told
The RAF has spent the past year using a ground-based electronic warfare system to jam or block other nations' satellites, a defence source told the BBC, saying it has already been used "to deter our adversaries." The capability could hide the movement of the UK's nuclear-armed submarines or special forces operations. It emerges as the RAF stands up a new Space Effects Squadron and warns of "unprecedented threats" in orbit.
Our dependency on space is precisely why it is increasingly under threat from our adversaries.
- gorgoiler
Presumably when World War 3 kicks off the very first thing each adversary will do is knock out their opponents satellites? These are like flying lightbulbs that shine down usefulness from above, so step one is to cut the lights.
Presumably-squared there is some kind of military backup to survive once the lights (GPS) go dark? Whatever that technology is, why hasn’t it proliferated into civilian life so that we all benefit from a resilient, non-GPS backup?
Perhaps the answer is that every tank has a 10lb inertial navigation gyro or some other thingy in it as a backup, and the platoon around it uses the tank as a moving trig point? In that case I can see it being infeasible to deploy that for civilians.
Perhaps-squared it’s just economics — GPS is cool and cheap now, so why burn profit margin on developing an alternative?
- mgaldys4
In terms of international game theory, this is entirely expected. No action would be the anomaly.
- seatac76
It’s probably trying to disrupt the Russian GPS jamming satellites.
Veritasium did a video on it recently https://youtu.be/tz23G_UXCGA
- teravor
does anyone know what exactly they are jamming? if a satellite spies on cellular and wifi activity, can you directionally jam it on that spectrum without causing collateral?
if it's an active frequency hopping radar can you react in time to ruin its image?
can a ground based laser track it well enough to dazzle its optical sensors?
- ExoticPearTree
I thought after 60,000 feet MSL a country's airspace ends.
So, who's the UK actually attacking?
- cute_boi
I think military should offer solution that is reasonable instead of finding problem and jamming everything.
- ck2
this should end well
or a whole new technology invented other than radio waves for data transmission
are any satellites using laser downlink yet or is line-of-sight too temperamental with weather and planes?
- EA-3167
Given the “Hybrid” attacks in Europe originating with Russia, the Houthi’s and Iran taking shots at shipping and the likelihood that certain countries are feeding Iran some of the intel… this is pretty understandable.
Russia makes whole regions inaccessible to GPS and it’s ultimately for the same underlying reason: soft kill systems and area denial scale better than kinetic options and are deniable.
It’s disappointing to see the majority of conversation here is moralizing and grandstanding rather than analysis.