SpaceX beating Russian jamming attack was ‘eyewatering’: DoD official

WASHINGTON: The US military’s electronic warfare enterprise needs to take a page from SpaceX when it comes to responding to new threats, the Pentagon’s director for electromagnetic warfare said today.

After SpaceX sent Starlink terminals to Ukraine in February in an apparent effort to help Ukraine maintain its internet connection amid war with Russia, SpaceX founder Elon Musk claimed that Russia had jammed Starlink terminals in the country for hours at a time. After a software update, Starlink was operating normally, said Musk, who added on March 25 that the constellation had “resisted all hacking & jamming attempts” in Ukraine.

Assuming Musk — famously something of a showboater in his public comments — is providing an accurate picture, a private firm beating back Russian EW attempts with software updates is the kind of thing that makes Pentagon EW experts pay attention.

“From an EW technologist perspective, that is fantastic. That paradigm and how they did that is kind of eyewatering to me,” said Dave Tremper, director of electronic warfare for the Pentagon’s acquisition office. “The way that Starlink was able to upgrade when a threat showed up, we need to be able to have that ability. We have to be able to change our electromagnetic posture, to be able to change very dynamically what we’re trying to do without losing capability along the way.”

Since Russia’s takeover of the Ukrainian territory of Crimea in 2014, the Russian military has used electronic warfare extensively in Ukraine’s Donbas region — often to great effect, using electromagnetic signals to uncover the positions of Ukrainian forces and disrupt equipment such as drones. However, the current conflict may be exposing the limits of Russia’s EW capability.

Tremper noted that Russia’ ongoing invasion deep into Ukraine is “a very different scenario” to earlier operations that were

Agreed !

It is truly sad, very undesired, and unfortunate, but the only true reason our adversaries haven’t destroyed is or our allies at many points in the past century, but especially since WWII, has been our own strategic readiness, and constant readiness of our forces globally.

In this globally adversarial atmosphere, those who push for us to de-arm are either enemies seeking the hastened demise of the US and its allies, or those who would only realize their error as their nation and children are being tortured to death, or incinerated.

Without exception, every time the US has powered down/drawn down it’s sword into plowshares, conflict and even WW has resulted.

In the perfect world, we all truly love and desire peace.

Domestically —

This is a world of immoral government sociopaths. These are only ever scheming and trying to demoralize and destroy true Western belief in God and the subsequent derived moral codes, the individuals, families, and the society which provide the national strength necessary to remain free.

Globally, our adversaries never rest, and only scheme and influence our weakness, and desire for us to put our “swords” down.

As a Believer, while the unrealized promises will increase going forward, the only kingdom on this earth which will see swords turned into plowshares, concurrent with peace, will be the one which is ruled by Christ, and His “rod of iron”.

Until then, there will always be conflict, as well as ever increasing intensity of the conflicts.

It won’t matter one spit in the oceans, how many cry out “neo-con”.

“Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” (Benjamin Franklin)

“Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.” (Benjamin Franklin)

“He who gives his freedom for safety gets none of them.” (Thomas Jefferson)

“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”
(Patrick Henry)

Phased array nulls are industry practice. The U.S.military does the very same thing with GPS antennas on moving platforms.

Here is an unclassified description of how it works. The types of antennas on those Starlink birds are bleeding edge technology. I gave the best description I could without going into classified details or processes. I hold a National Geospatial Intelligence cert and have spent time doing consulting in that community as well as remote sensing for the same community while doing post doctoral work.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405959521000850

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