The American company L3 Harris Technologies is developing a new electromagnetic warfare (EW) system called Meadowlands. It is designed to disable Russian and Chinese satellites and will be mobile in order to reduce its vulnerability.
Electromagnetic warfare system against Russian satellites
By 2024, the US military should have an electromagnetic warfare system designed to disable enemy satellites. First of all, it is designed to ensure that in the event of an armed conflict with Russia and China, the US army has advantages over them.
A system called Meadowlands is being developed by L3 Harris Technologies. However, it was supposed to be adopted by the United States last year, however, according to the company’s management, such a delay is not critical.
Representatives of the US Space Forces announced that the technical difficulties that caused the delay in the development of a new electronic warfare system had finally been resolved and now they, together with L3 Harris Technologies specialists, were preparing for the testing and integration stage.
In general, the US military has ordered 30 such systems. Each of them will consist of several installations that will be mounted on wheeled trailers and will work together. The total cost of the Meadowlands system is estimated at USD 219 million.
Space as a battlefield
The US military has been seriously considering space as an arena for military confrontation for some time. Air Force Major General David Miller, who holds the position of director of Space Force operations, said that the US Congress practically recognized this when it created its service.
In fact, the Meadowlands EW is a development of the Counter Communications System program, which has been operating since 2020. The main thing is how it differs from its predecessor: simplicity and compactness, which engineers have been working on all these years.
The previous system was placed on as many as 14 separate trailers, which greatly increased its deployment time and vulnerability. Meadowlands will only take two large trailers. It is expected that its main goals will belong to China.
Separately, representatives of L3 Harris Technologies and the military noted that the beginning of combat use of the system would not mean the formation of a large amount of space debris. Because instead of physically hitting satellites and forming a cloud of debris, the electronic warfare system will only disable their control systems.
According to interestingengineering.co
Follow us on Twitter to get the most interesting space news in time
https://twitter.com/ust_magazine
