Asset Publisher

Commercial Space Capabilities Drive Asymmetric Warfare Advantages

Commercial Space Capabilities Drive Asymmetric Warfare Advantages

Dr. Wenschel Lan demonstrates a small satellite.

In December, Research Associate Professor Dr. Wenschel Lan discussed the utility of commercial space capabilities in the Russia-Ukraine war at a recent NWSI Seapower Conversation. She was joined by two graduate students in the Space Systems Academic Group who shared their ongoing thesis research on the topic. 

  • Each of the three presentations is summarized below.

 

The Current Landscape

Dr. Lan demonstrated how advanced satellite technology has become by holding up a tiny 3U CubeSat “about the size of a shoebox—and maybe only a single shoe” equipped with a camera capable of taking high-resolution photos that are detailed enough to show, for instance, the buildup of military buildings and infrastructure in Russia near the Ukraine border.

Why it matters: These commercial space capabilities are leveling the playing field for situational awareness by providing access to images and data at the unclassified level for all countries, even those who have not built or launched their own satellites.

Ukraine now has an asymmetric advantage due to its access to information produced by such capabilities, while Western sanctions against Russia have left that country without the same level of access or comparable resources.

How it works: The secret to ensuring commercial data can create information advantage is open access and intentional sharing with Ukraine and other countries whose national security goals align with the United States.

Challenging false narratives: One of the benefits of such widely available data is that it can readily debunk disinformation and propaganda campaigns.

  • Russia, for example, claimed its soldiers were not responsible for civilian deaths in Bucha in 2022 – but satellite images revealed otherwise.

Ship tracking data is also playing a role, with one company using 160 tracking satellites. These commercial satellites give data including country of origin, type of cargo, and class of ship.

The right data analytic tools paint a picture of the larger geopolitical impacts of the Russia-Ukraine war.

  • Commercial shipping traffic in the Black Sea has slowed significantly since the war started.
  • These tracking satellites also revealed how both oil from Russia and grain from Ukraine were able to move across borders despite blockades and prohibitions.

On the flip side: Commercial capabilities can introduce new risk.

  • Commercial companies can choose to simply not make their technologies available, as happened with SpaceX’s Starlink in September of 2022.
  • Space assets could be legitimate military targets if used for military purposes, as Russia announced to the United Nations in 2022.

Counterspace effects: Russia has countered some of these space capabilities through cyber and electronic warfare.

  • The country hacked ViaSat on February 23, 2022, one day before the invasion of Ukraine, injecting malware that took modems offline and flooded servers to create denial of service.
  • Russia also jammed space-based GPS signals in order to counter drone attacks in late 2023.

Commercial agility: Two months into the war, Russian attempts to hack and jam Starlink satellites were speedily thwarted by the company.

  • Starlink was able to upload a software update to more than 4,000 satellites within one day of reported Russian jamming attacks.
  • Dave Tremper, director of electronic warfare for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, went on record saying that DoD needs access to the same kind of capability.

A Future with More Resilient Command and Control

 

LT Austin Dumas, a Navy officer in the Space Systems Academic Group, was motivated by his Naval experience to research ways to build more resilience into command-and-control systems when so much of future war will be fought in the electromagnetic spectrum.

  • Radio frequency (RF) transmissions can inadvertently reveal location to the adversary.
  • Radio signals are constantly jammed.
  • Drone operations generally rely on line-of-sight connections, potentially increasing vulnerability to operators.
  • These datalinks are unlikely to work in a contested environment.

Capability at the edge: Solutions to these challenges can be found in commercial products that have been able to reduce the size, weight, and power (SWaP) of satellite terminals while still providing extremely resilient pathways.

Dumas shared video of his team’s experiment that integrated a flat Starlink high performance terminal on an unmanned surface vessel at the October 2023 Joint Interagency Field Experimentation (JIFX) event.

  • Users were able to use the terminal to both task the system and watch its performance with tracking and a full-motion video.
  • These capabilities enable object detection, classification, and even follow-on targeting.

Industry partners: LT Dumas’s team worked with two companies, Saronic and Higher Ground, that have Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADAs) with NPS, relationships that allow projects like this to move faster and at operationally relevant speeds.

As LT Dumas said, “The goal of this research project is to make a direct impact to accelerating operational capabilities with the technology that is being used now in conflicts around the world.”

Learn more about how LT Dumas and team developed a prototype of this solution using NPS’ Naval Innovation Exchange program.
 


Future Alternatives for Position, Navigation, and Timing

 

LT Forrest Hansen, another naval officer in the Space Systems Academic Group, shared his thesis research on alternative position, navigation, and timing (PNT) using the Starlink constellation.

In addition to the communication capabilities explored by LT Dumas, Starlink has also developed geolocation capabilities for their proliferated low earth orbit (pLEO) satellite terminals.

  • If a terminal’s onboard GPS receiver is jammed, the terminal can still determine its position based off a geolocation method that comes from the Starlink constellation’s signals.

LT Hansen saw this as an opportunity for alternative PNT for U.S. assets and conducted tests on several features.

Static and mobile tests demonstrated alternative PNT capabilities and identified delays and challenges in maintaining fixes while in motion.

  • LT Hansen noted that GPS is still a superior technology for PNT, but pLEO satellite terminals can provide an alternative if GPS is not available.
  • Additionally, LT Hansen shared that new commercial constellations are being designed now specifically for PNT. These new constellation providers advertise greater accuracy once their constellations are deployed at scale.

 

For jamming and detection capabilities, the shorter distance between transmitter and receiver from a pLEO constellation results in a stronger signal strength compared to GPS. This increased signal strength combined with the diverse range of frequencies of pLEO constellations make them more resilient against GPS jamming attempts.

Bottom line: Emerging proliferated low earth orbit constellations, such as Starlink, can provide alternative PNT solutions that increase resiliency against electronic warfare as compared to solutions that rely solely on GPS.

Want more details?


What’s next: On 21 February, NWSI Director Randy Pugh will be discussing the impact of electromagnetic warfare in the Russia-Ukraine war during our next Seapower Conversation.

Read more NWSI headlines on the NPS News page.

Asset Publisher









Naval War College at NPS Graduates 93rd Class