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The US military is close to fielding two new weapons designed to temporally jam Chinese and Russian intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance satellites, giving the Pentagon three counter-space capabilities, according to new Space Force data. The weapons, called Meadowlands and Remote Sensing Terminals, will join a larger and less mobile “Counter Communications System” jammer – an upgraded big dish that was declared operational in 2020. The fresh systems will be dispersed worldwide and sometimes operated remotely, intended to counter what US military officials are more stridently outlining as a growing Chinese space-based threat against US forces. China has on orbit, as of July, more than 1,189 satellites of which the People’s Liberation Army “benefits from over 510 intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance satellites with optical, multispectral, radar and radio frequency sensors”, according to an unclassified Space Force “Space Threat Fact Sheet” updated in September. Those satellites allow the Chinese to detect US aircraft carriers, expeditionary forces and air wings, the fact sheet said. The L3Harris Technologies Meadowlands, which is several years behind schedule as a result of technical issues, is currently undergoing final training, live-fire exercises, mission rehearsals and tactics development, and is expected to be fielded this financial year, said the Space Operations Command. The second jammer known as the Remote Modular Terminal is being placed overseas “in identified fielded locations, the exact number and locations of which will not be disclosed”, the command said. The terminals, which can be operated by personnel remotely, “are in a limited early-use phase, meaning they can be operationally employed” while still conducting testing, it said. The Remote Modular Terminal was developed by Sterling, Virginia-based contractor Northstrat and CACI International, after receiving the Space Force contract in September 2022. Bloomberg previously reported the US planned to buy as many as 32 Meadowlands and 24 RMTs. The Pentagon strives – on the rare occasions when it discusses such space capabilities – to stress that its emerging satellite-jamming technology is purely defensive and narrowly focused. By contrast, the US says Russia is developing a nuclear weapon that could create high-altitude electromagnetic pulses that would take out satellites and disrupt entire communications networks. There is also a US system that would destroy a satellite, creating debris. The Space Force statements mark three “openly acknowledged offensive counter-space systems that the US has fielded to date”, whereas until now, the US had just one, said Victoria Samson, director for Space Security and Stability issues at the Secure World Foundation, a non-profit advocacy group. The jammers “respond to an immediate military need but using them isn’t perceived as having crossed a red line or means that there will be active conflict in space”, said Samson, who oversees publication of an annual counter-space technologies publication. “And price-wise, they are much more cost-effective than space-based jammers.” To coordinate jamming operations, the Space Force is setting up a “Space Electromagnetic Tactical Operations Centre” that uses a surveillance system called “Bounty Hunter” to monitor if US satellites are being targeted with electromagnetic interference, as well as the locations of adversary spacecraft. A Bounty Hunter detection system was delivered in 2018 to US Indo-Pacific Command, followed by another in 2019 to US Central Command.
