The U.S. is about to deploy a new ground-based jammer designed to blunt Chinese or Russian satellites from transmitting information about U.S. forces during a conflict, the Space Force disclosed.
The Pentagon’s space service branch tested the system for the first time earlier this year at two different locations, with control of the system at a third. The devices aren’t meant to protect U.S. satellites from Chinese or Russian jamming but "to responsibly counter adversary satellite communications capabilities that enable attacks,” the Space Force said in a statement to Bloomberg News.
The Pentagon strives — on the rare occasions when it discusses such space capabilities — to distinguish its emerging satellite-jamming technology as purely defensive and narrowly focused. That’s as opposed to a nuclear weapon the U.S. says Russia is developing that could create high-altitude electromagnetic pulses that would take out satellites and disrupt entire communications networks.