EW 105 - Space Electronic Warfare (Artech House)

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Although satellites can be attacked kinetically, it is a great deal of trouble to do so

EW 105 - Space Electronic Warfare

By David L. Adamy

Artech House 2021

Print ISBN: 1630818348

Price: £138 ($159)

New Release Price: $129

June 2021 -- London -- Artech House has released a new book by well-known author David L. Adamy entitled "EW 105 - Space Electronic Warfare."

There is increasing interest in Electronic Warfare in Space because of the strategic advantages that satellites offer. Because of their elevated positions, they can see a great distance, and they can remain operational for extended periods.

Although satellites can be attacked kinetically, it is a great deal of trouble to do so – they are small and far away.

This makes them valuable as electronic warfare platforms. A disadvantage of satellites is that they are in general unmanned. This means that communication with a satellite requires an electro-magnetic link which is vulnerable to enemy countermeasures.

Another disadvantage of a satellite is that it cannot be easily steered to an optimum location.

However, we can predict the timing vs. satellite location, so we can plan other events with full knowledge of when a satellite will be able to view a part of the Earth's surface. In general, the higher a satellite is, the longer it can see a specific part of the Earth. Low orbits, barely above the atmosphere, have orbital periods down near one and a half hours and they only dwell for a few minutes over one potential target, and can see out to about 2000 km from the sub-vehicle point. (the sub-vehicle point is on the Earth right below the satellite.) When a satellite is at about 37,000 km attitude is has an orbital period of 24 hours, so it can hover over one location indefinitely and can see about 45% of the Earth's surface. This is called a "synchronous" orbit. We will deal with the calculation of these and related values for specific satellite parameters in later chapters. A major trade-off in the selection of satellite orbit parameters is the range between the satellite and a potential target for intercept or jamming. As stated above, satellites are far away and thus incur very large signal transmission losses.

After some important math related to satellites, we'll cover some basic relationships in orbits. We will skip many of the niceties of derivations and minor details in this book, but will go directly to the information required for us to work practical, EW related problems – primarily intercept and jamming of hostile signals transmitted from the Earth's surface and the vulnerability of satellite links to attack from the Earth's surface. We will divide our attention between hostile radars and hostile communications. The path of an Earth satellite is affected by the gravitational pull of every other object in space, but most of those objects are far away and thus have only secondary effects.

The main elements determining the orbit are the gravitational pull of the Earth and the velocity of the Earth satellite.

By ignoring other factors, we have what is called the "two body problem." For our purposes at this time, we assume there is nothing in space except the Earth and one satellite moving around the Earth. Working with the mechanics of the orbit and dealing with angles and distances between satellites and the transmitters and receivers involved in EW operations will require the use of spherical trigonometry, so we will also cover that rather gently – focusing on the equations required to work EW problems. The other important math involves radio propagation. We will cover this both within the atmosphere and in space.

There is a lot of trigonometry in this book. This is because the inputs to electronic warfare equations are very dependent on the relative positions of satellites and ground transmitters or receivers. Also important to calculations are the relative directions to other "players." When dealing with relationships in spherical and plane triangles in problems presented in all of the chapters, it may seem that a few things are "over explained." This is because the author (like many other people) can get lost in the geometry and thus would prefer to over explain something than to leave out logical steps that "seem obvious." This is done without apology.

A leading technical book publisher, Artech House provides today's professionals and students with cutting-edge books and software from the world's top authorities. From RF/microwave design, wireless communications, radar engineering, and electronic defense, to GPS/GNSS, power engineering, computer security, and building technology, Artech House publishes the forward-looking titles that engineers and managers need to excel. Artech House is a subsidiary of Horizon House Publications, Inc., publisher of the internationally acclaimed magazine Microwave Journal®. Artech House operates two full service offices: the main headquarters in suburban Boston, and a European division located in Central London. Both offices offer full publishing capabilities, from sales and distribution, to acquisitions and editorial, to promotion and marketing functions.