If I was a nation state adversary, I’d put pretty high on my TODO list getting a handful of jamming satellites with a decent power supply at geostationary locations above all my adversaries.
Since a single geostationary satellite has line of sight covering about 1/3 of the planets surface, I bet if they had a decent sized reactor onboard and a well thought out transmitter/antenna array, the ROI would look pretty good.
That is not feasible at a cost any current nation state could afford. Due to the inverse square law, the power output requirements to achieve any noticeable jamming from geostationary orbit would be enormous. There have been limited tests of fission reactors in space but they are too complex to operate reliably unattended for long. So, satellites are going to limited to solar or RTG power.
Only if using old school ‘blanket the area’ monopole antennas or if the goal was to cover the entire potential area all at once -but that seems unlikely to be desirable most of the time.
Phased arrays and beam steering would allow them to pick and choose the area at will with high resolution - or even specific targets like several hundred airliners at once.
Notably, the same things that starlink needs for being able to properly track base stations and communicate at the timescale/numbers it needs, and the tech is widely used in everything from cell phone towers to military.
Starlink has it a lot easier due to LEO, but they’re also a private company with a much harder problem and on a shoestring budget compared to a nation state.
TDP would be a lot lower if they could get it focused well enough. And it wouldn’t need to be operating all the time - a ‘war’ mode vs sleep mode seems like it would work too.
When not jamming, it could be a passive signals intelligence platform.
Or build a couple dozen and put in a lower orbit. Not like it would make a dent in China or Russias military budget, or require any tech newer than 20 years old for them.
> Or build a couple dozen and put in a lower orbit. Not like it would make a dent in China or Russias military budget, or require any tech newer than 20 years old for them.
Look at this animation[1] for a moment (click the >> or >>> button to speed up) and think about what it would actually take to get "in front" of enough satellites to block out a given geographic region; even just a single city. There are hundreds of satellites in each orbital plane, rapidly cycling through and taking each others' place.
You obviously cannot have counter-satellites in a geosynchronous "position", and you also can't have satellites simply move between greatly different orbits (or phases of existing orbits) willy nilly; The delta-V requirements are just too great. This just isn't a feasible strategy.
Given the wavelengths and distances involved there are severe physics limits to how much beams can be steered and focused. These aren't lasers. What you are proposing isn't practical at a cost any nation state can currently afford.
Since a single geostationary satellite has line of sight covering about 1/3 of the planets surface, I bet if they had a decent sized reactor onboard and a well thought out transmitter/antenna array, the ROI would look pretty good.
And I’m just some random punter.