Mr. Chairman, I am Dr. George Ullrich, the Deputy Director at the Defense Special Weapons Agency in the Department of Defense. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss this important issue.

It is interesting to note that exactly 52 years ago to the day, the world’s first nuclear device was exploded at Trinity site, located on an isolated stretch of New Mexico desert in what is now the White Sands Missile Range. It was Enrico Fermi who, prior to the Trinity Event, first predicted that nuclear explosions were capable of generating strong electromagnetic fields. Since then we have learned a great deal more about nuclear-induced electromagnetic phenomena and, in particular, about the phenomenon of high altitude Electro-Magnetic Pulse, commonly called “EMP.”

The US has created electronic-warfare squads capable of jamming enemy satellite transmissions, reports The Register. Mobile teams are equipped with electronic jamming gear capable of disrupting attempts to interfere with its satellite resources, The Washington Times reports.

The so-called Counter Communications System was declared operational last year at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, according to the San Diego Tribune. The ground-based jammer uses electromagnetic radio frequency energy to knock out transmissions on a temporary and reversible basis, without frying components, the command said.

Northrop Grumman is the prime contractor on the CounterCom system, with Harris a major subcontractor. The system is reportedly similar to other ground based electronic warfare gear.

The Washington Times makes note of a recent satellite launch by the U.S. to put a jammer in space that will allow us to disrupt enemy communication systems at will.

The U.S. military is bracing for future attacks in space, and the Air Force has deployed an electronic-warfare unit capable of jamming enemy satellites, the general in charge of space defenses says.

In 2002, after weighing the report of the Rumsfeld space commission (FAS), President Bush withdrew from the 30-year-old Antiballistic Missile Treaty, which banned space-based weapons.

But Richard Garwin, regarded by some as a dean of American weapons science, and three colleagues wrote in the March issue of IEEE Spectrum, that “a space-based laser would cost $100 million per target, compared with $600,000 for a Tomahawk missile.”

“We must field Offensive Counterspace capabilities with temporary and reversible effects to deny an adversary the ability to exploit the asymmetric advantages space provides our Nation’s Armed Forces and our global economy. .” - General Lance Lord at FY 2006 Defense Authorization Budget Hearings, March, 2005

“You can’t go to war and win without space,” Gen. Lance Lord, the four-star general in charge of the Colorado-based Air Force Space Command, told The Washington Times. Air Force Space Command is tasked with both protecting Us satellites from attack or disruption and maintaining an offensive capability against “enemy” space hardware. Just who the enemy might be in this context isn’t entirely clear but may include China and Russia.

Northern Command doesn’t want anyone screwing with satellite communications — especially now. If critical domestic or military satellites suddently went dark in the next 48 hours, it would be particularly onerous. And now would be a good time to attack.

The 76th Space Control Squadron, based at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo., last year deployed the first offensive countercommunications system that uses mobile teams that can fire electronic jamming gear capable of knocking out enemy satellite communications.

Gen Lord is keen to downplay suggestions that the US was intent in turning space into a battlefield.

“We’re not talking about weaponizing* space. We’re not talking about massive satellite attacks coming over the horizon or anything like that,” he said.

Russia reportedly developed anti-satellite weapons at the height of the Cold War and China is judged to pose a threat to the US’s strategic superiority in space. Unnamed officials told Washingtom Times that China has carried tested electronic signal jamming against satellites. If China has this capability then the US needs to develop countermeasures, the thinking goes.

“China’s had 45 successful launches since 1996. They will be a very robust and potent competitor in the future, and we want to make sure we understand who they are and how they’re emerging in this business. They look at us; we look at them,” the official said.

The US Space Command has a responsibility to accessing military threats. “We understand that jamming has gone on and other things have occurred, and we watch that very closely,” Gen. Lord said. “If somebody is trying to use space against us, we could interrupt, in a reversible kind of way, those kind of capabilities as needed and as directed by US policy.”

Anti-satellite weapons are currently limited to jamming signals sent from the ground to satellites that try to disrupt US military or civilian spacecraft, Gen. Lord said.

The U.S. military will not be self-reliant on satellite bandwidth until 2020, necessitating the need to incorporate commercial satellite providers and generating $7.8 billion in revenue through 2010.

Satellite providers, once owned and operated by governments or private capital, have been bought out by investment bankers who now call the shots.

A private company, XTAR Communications is offering X-band services to government users in the United States, Spain, and other friendly and allied nations. The X-band is only available to military users.

XTAR, a joint venture between Loral, which owns 56 percent, and HISDESAT, which owns 44 percent, operates a total of twenty 72 MHz transponders using the military’s X-band (7.90-8.40 GHz Uplink/7.25-7.75 GHz Downlink).

XTAR XTAR-EUR has 12 72-MHz transponders, two global beams, one fixed spot beam over Europe and four steerable spot beams. Its satellite footprint reaches from eastern Brazil to Singapore, including the Middle East and the entire African continent. In the fourth quarter of 2005, XTAR-LANT will carry eight 72-MHz XTAR transponders, two global beams, one fixed beam over the United States and three steerable spot beams. The XTAR-LANT footprint reaches from Saudi Arabia to Denver, CO.

XTAR alone cannot satisfy the U.S. Government s SATCOM requirements, but it will significantly augment bandwidth in the government s critical communication frequency, X-band.

The South Korean Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute ETRI is developing Ka-band mobile broadband satellite system supporting 100Mbps down and 10Mbps up (the MoBISAT project). It uses a a hybrid type of low profile reflector and active phased array.

An electromagnetic space weapon that could destroy a satellite with a powerful EMP or laser burst from the ground is not the stuff of science fiction, but acknowledging the vulnerability of space assets does nobody any good. Dr Good’s Satellite Laser not withstanding.

The Missile Technology Control Regime is an informal and voluntary association of countries to prevent the proliferation of unmanned delivery systems capable of delivering weapons of mass destruction. The MTCR rests on adherence to common export policy guidelines applied to a common list of controlled items.

During the Iraq invasion, use of a High Powered Microwave (HPM) weapon was apparently contemplated. The “ebomb“, developed by the Directed Energy Weapon program, can briefly deliver a single massive pulse larger that the output of Hoover Dam, about two billion watts, instantly disabiling most electronics.

The technology was pioneered at the High Energy Research and Technology Facility at USAF base Kirtland, New Mexico, in a top-secret building called The Trestle, in a canyon in the Manzano mountains and has reportedly been fitted to small AGM-86 cruise missiles, carried by B52s. Some observers say using the e-bomb would be risky since its effects are hard to control and it may be relatively easy for terrorists to duplicate.

Northrop/Grumman has a Mobile Tactical High Energy Laser developed for missile defense. Shoots down speeding bullets.

The EMP threat is one of a few potentially catastrophic threats to the United States. By taking action, the EMP threat can be reduced to manageable levels, but we should have started yesterday, Mr. Speaker. We just must start today.

It’s debatable whether space weapons aimed at China, Russia or terrorists of various stripes are misguided.

For example, Gregory Herns, 21, from Portland, Oregon, hacked into the network at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center to store movies he had downloaded. The intrusion caused systems to crash. The Mount Hood Community College student admitted his guilt and apologised for the inconvenience.

Related DailyWireless stories include Pacific Satellites Fail, Intelsat-7 Goes Dark, Rocket Welfare, The NRO’s Radar Imaging Satellite, The $6B Satellite, The $10B Net, Future Combat Systems, Joint Tactical Radio System, Laser Battle Stations, NRO Rides Again, Laser Battle Stations, Dr Good’s Satellite Laser, RF-ID Tracking from Space, Stratellite, Sky High WiFi, Battle Blimps, Spot Beam Satellite Launched, Spaceway Retrogrades, Future Crimes: MATRIX, Billions for Bombs, Internet Satellite on E-Bay and Unwired in Hawaii.

Posted by Sam Churchill on Friday, September 23rd, 2005 at 2:12 am.