America's Subtle Sat-Killers

Sure, blowing up satellites into a gazillion bits, or blinding them with big ol' lasers is more dramatic. But, unlike China, the U.S. tends to take a subtler approach to thwarting enemy orbiters, MSBNC reports -- one that "relies on spy satellites' most vulnerable aspect: the need for constant housekeeping from the ground."

To maintain satellite orbits, particularly low Earth orbits, controllers on the ground must send their satellites a constant barrage of signals from ground stations around the world. For example, the United States maintains the Satellite Control Network, a string of eight tracking stations in places as remote as Thule Air Base on Greenland, and Diego
Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

By interfering with those signals — called telemetry, tracking and control signals — the United States can put satellites out of commission for critical periods of time or send them spiraling out of control.
Intelligence experts call the strategy “electronic negation” or
“intrusion.”

"The best ASAT [anti-satellite device] is not a weapon that detonates next to an enemy satellite," said William E. Burrows, a journalism professor at New York University who is also the author of "Deep Black," a book on spy satellites. "Instead, it would be a signal that would tell the satellite to take the rest of the afternoon off."

Since 2004, the U.S. Air Force has had in its arsenal a series of radio frequency jammers, to interfere with satellite operations. Three or four times a year, small groups of junior officers gather at an Air Force Research
Laboratory facility in New Mexico to figure out how to take American satellites off-line using nothing more than sweet talk and off-the-shelf gear.

(High five: RC)