NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Can you have a big jammer in space?
From: Richard Easton
Date: 2015 Mar 12, 21:11 -0700
From: Richard Easton
Date: 2015 Mar 12, 21:11 -0700
Frank,
I'm aware of one situation where the US jammed ourselves. Pete Wilhelm told me in 2010 that the first satellite he built for my dad was Surcal (for Space Surveillance Calibration). This was used to calibrate the Naval Space Surveillance System (sometimes called the Space Fence). http://www.astronautix.com/craft/surcal.htm He asked my dad if it needed an off switch. Dad said no. The satellite was so powerful that it jammed Space Surveillance for about ten seconds on each orbit. Wilhelm said that it was a big pain until it burned up three years later. SHAMELSS SELF PROMOTION TO FOLLOW - there are more details in my book GPS Declassified: From Smart Bombs to Smartphones.
