Global Courant 2023-04-26 16:23:43
The recently leaked Pentagon document suggested that China is developing sophisticated cyber-attacks for the purpose disrupting military communications satellites. While this is unconfirmed, it is certainly possible, as many sovereign nations and private companies have considered how to protect against signal interference.
Almost every aspect of our lives is made possible by satellite communications, from financial transactions, navigation, weather forecastAnd internet services to more remote locations. But given the number of satellites in orbit, the effect could be felt on part of the population, but if one or two satellites were lost, there wouldn’t be any major problems.
But when looking at the military benefits of satellites, instant communication is vital for early warning and tracking systems. So how easy would it be to disrupt these services?
The Chinese space program has been progresses at a faster pace than that of any other country. China’s first successful launch was in 1970, but in 1999 the space program took a leap forward with the Shenzhou-1 launch which was the first in a series of uncrewed, then manned, increasingly sophisticated space missions.
China conducted just over 200 launches between 2010 and 2019. In 2022 it set a record with 53 rocket launches in a year – with an incredible 100% success rate.
As such, the Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA) has become a major player in global space activity and has extensive experience in satellite communications.
Satellites would be a target in any conflict between the US and China. Image: Twitter
The leaked document suggests the Chinese are seeking the opportunity to “take control of a satellite, rendering it ineffective to support communications, weapons or intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems.”
It is also quite possible that the US and other countries are also developing such capabilities.
Satellites orbit our planet range of heights. The lowest stable orbits are about 300 kilometers, the International Space Station and Hubble Space Telescope are at an altitude of 500 kilometers, and geostationary satellites are at about 36,000 kilometers (about six times the radius of the Earth).
The idea of physically capturing or taking over a satellite was considered a largely impossible task, although it has been featured in famous films like “You only live twicewhere a large orbiting cylinder swallowed a manned spacecraft.
Smaller craft designed to remove space debris from orbit have been launched in recent years. But the practical challenges of capturing a fully operational and working satellite are much greater (especially because of the recoil from firing harpoons).
However, there are methods to disrupt and even take over satellite communication?
Three ways to disrupt satellite communications
1. Saturation
This is the easiest method. Satellites communicate by broadcasting on a specific range of radio or microwave frequencies. By bombarding the receiving station or satellite itself you can effectively drown out the signal. It is especially effective with positioning information.
2. Getting stuck
This is a method of redirecting the communication signal of reaching the satellite or ground station. This requires strong signals to fool one or the other that the jamming signal is the main transmitting station, as a communication will lock onto the strongest source.
This method of interference works best when the jamming signal contains no information, so the receiver assumes there is no data transmission (a human then hears silence or just a tone).
3. Send order
This is infinitely more tricky procedure. The original signal must be suppressed or overwhelmed and the replacement signal must be able to communicate accurately and fool a satellite.
This usually requires knowing an encryption key that would be used, as well as the correct commands and syntax. This type of information cannot be easily guessed, meaning knowledge of the launch systems and companies is required.
To make these three techniques easier to understand, imagine you are sitting in a restaurant and your partner is sitting across from you. You talk to them normally and then the background music is turned up really loud. You may be able to distinguish some words, but not all – this would be saturation.
Now the waiter comes over and starts talking loudly to you and distracting you – this would be distracting.
Now your partner goes to the toilet and you receive a call that appears to be from him, but is actually from someone who has taken out his phone and is impersonating him – this would be a command send.
This last example is infinitely more difficult to achieve, but most likely to be disrupted. If you can trick a satellite into thinking you’re the real command source, you’re not alone communication blocked but false information and images can be sent to the ground stations.
Zombie satellites
When a satellite loses communication, we call it a zombie satellite. Essentially, it cannot perform any of its intended tasks and just circles along little chance of recovery.
This can happen naturally during coronal mass ejections, when the sun releases large amounts of energetically charged particles that can interact with satellites and cause electrical surges. In some cases, this results in unreliable data, but can also lead to loss of communication.
Destructive tests of anti-satellite missiles generate massive amounts of space debris that could endanger other satellites and manned spacecraft. Photo: Atalayar
The most famous of these cases was the Galaxy 15 telecommunications satellitewhich lost communication with the ground station in 2010, but continued to broadcast communications to customers.
While the military cannot replicate coronal mass ejections, signal hijacking is possible. The leaked document offers no evidence whatsoever of China’s capabilities, or even the United States’ current progress in this regard.
All we can say is that our understanding of atmospheric physics and wave propagation in the upper atmosphere is likely to grow rapidly as this becomes increasingly important.
Ian Whittaker is a senior lecturer in physics, University of Nottingham Trent
This article has been republished from The conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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