The U.S. Space Force is on track to field its first batch of a new ground-based satellite communications jammer in the coming months — designed to disrupt signals from enemy spacecraft.
Space Operations Command just approved the Remote Modular Terminals for initial fielding, a spokesperson told Defense News Wednesday, adding that the jammers will be in the hands of military users imminently.
The Space Force plans to field 11 systems as part of the first release, giving units a chance to use the system before it’s accepted for operations. The program has funding to build around 160, and the service expects to need as many as 200 in the coming years.
The Space Rapid Capabilities Office, a fast-moving acquisition team based at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico, is the lead for the RMT program. Space RCO Director Kelly Hammett told reporters last week the small, modular terminals are designed to block adversary communications from satellites that are surveilling U.S. and allies, particularly in the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.
“We want to be able to disrupt their comms and their kill chains and their targeting links,” Hammett said during a Dec. 11 media briefing at the Spacepower Conference in Orlando, Fla. “That’s what these systems are intended to do: to block reception going either from, say, sensors that are that are looking at our joint forces and reporting up to a satellite and back to a battle management node, or vice versa.”
The U.S. is particularly concerned about surveillance satellites China has launched in recent years. The remote systems, called Yaogan, provide continuous, uninterrupted coverage of the Indo-Pacific theater to identify gaps in U.S. and allied forces. The latest version, Yaogan-41, launched to geostationary orbit late last year and can track car-sized objects, according to a January 2024 report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The RMT jammers will essentially “yell in their ear” so the radars can’t command other systems to attack U.S. assets, according to Hammett.
Hammett declined to say where the first systems will be fielded, but said the initial locations have been identified. Speaking this fall at a separate Space Industry Days conference in Los Angeles, Hammett said operators will be able to control the systems from locations in the U.S. even as they’re deployed around the world.
The Space RCO awarded contracts for the program just 18 months ago, working with a small, Virginia-based company called Northstrat. The firm partnered with a larger company, Khaki, to leverage mostly off-the-shelf technology to build the terminals.
The terminals themselves are small, Hammett said, and cost roughly $1.5 million each.
“As far as space electronic warfare goes, you can’t get much better than that,” he said.
Courtney Albon is C4ISRNET’s space and emerging technology reporter. She has covered the U.S. military since 2012, with a focus on the Air Force and Space Force. She has reported on some of the Defense Department’s most significant acquisition, budget and policy challenges.
