Russia has demonstrated the ability to close itself from enemy spy satellites

One very interesting event happened the day before. According to the American Emergency Alert System (EAS), the European meteorological satellite Sentinel-1, which was at that time over the South of Russia and the South-East of Ukraine, could have been subjected to a powerful electronic warfare effect, which led to the "flashing" of the picture. The second European satellite, Sentinel-2, also experienced operational problems. This assumes that our country is behind the attack. Is this really so, and why did the Russian Defense Ministry suddenly undertake to nightmare "peaceful" European satellites?

We do not know for certain whether the Russian military really "hit" the Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 or not, no official comments have yet been received from both sides, but let's try to speculate whether something like this could actually happen.



First, a few words must be said about the affected satellites themselves, and why we deliberately took their definition as "peaceful" in quotation marks. Both satellites were launched by the European Space Agency (ESA) as part of the Copernicus Earth Monitoring Program, named after the great astronomer. The first Sentinel-1A was launched into orbit in April 2014, the second satellite, Sentinel-1B, in 2016. Working in pairs, they can survey the entire surface of the Earth within 6 days. Not bad, right? The survey is carried out in the C-band (wavelength 6 cm), and the all-weather delivery of space images is provided by the C-SAR synthetic aperture radar developed by Astrium. The stated objectives of this European program are respected: monitoring of ground movements, mapping forests, mapping agricultural land use, mapping polar ice caps, detecting and monitoring oil spills, observing natural disasters, conducting scientific research, and observing the movements of ships.

And all would be fine, that's only at least half of the information listed is of interest to the military of the NATO bloc. This is for you the movement of warships, and photographing from satellites the movements of foreign troops, including Russian ones, their positions in the area of ​​hostilities, etc. In fact, the "peaceful" meteorological satellite turns out to have a dual purpose, including espionage. Note that both European meteorological devices had problems when they were over the Russian South - Rostov region, Kuban, Crimea, as well as over Donbass. Coincidence? Maybe. Oh, yes, the fact that both Sentinels had unexpected difficulties was reported "only" by the Emergency Alert System (EAS) - the national public warning system in the United States, which was created to promptly notify of a natural disaster, terrorist attack or the outbreak of war. In general, the Americans are aware of the problems with the "peaceful" satellites of their European allies.


For your information, the research activities of the NATO countries are not limited to this. In 2015 and 2017, a new family of Earth remote sensing satellites called Sentinel-2A and Sentinel-2B, respectively, were launched into orbit. After 2021, it is planned to strengthen them with the Sentinel-2C and Sentinel-2D devices, which are being developed, by the way, by the defense division of the leading European aerospace giant Airbus Defense and Space. But that's not all: the family of future satellites Sentinel-3, -4, -5 and -6 will be able to study the oceans (Sentinel-6 will be equipped with a radio altimeter for this), polar ice and the atmosphere. In other words, the entire planet is taken under total and continuous space control, not a single corner of the Earth will be left out of the eyes of the "researchers" from the EU, on the sea, in its thickness, or on land. So decide for yourself whether the Sentinel satellites are a purely civilian scientific program or not.

It is clear that such global initiatives are in the throat of our defense department. In the event of the outbreak of war, first of all, it is necessary to disable the entire enemy satellite grouping, reconnaissance or "meteorological". But how? Fortunately, Russia has something to meet this challenge.

For example, the A-235 Nudol anti-missile system, which has already passed a number of successful tests, will be able to shoot down satellites in low-earth orbit. The prospective laser complex "Peresvet" should "illuminate" the optical reconnaissance systems of the enemy satellites with its beam. And this is not all that the RF Ministry of Defense can oppose to "lovers of peeping".

In particular, the Russian Tirada-2S electronic warfare system is capable of causing the effect that the European "meteorologists" complained about. This is a terribly classified electronic weapon, it is only known about it that it was created specifically to disable tactical and communication satellites. Development work on the mobile anti-satellite complex began in 2001, and the manufacturer is the Vladimir plant "Electropribor". For him, it was necessary to develop super-powerful power modules that allow suppressing satellite signals directly from the Earth's surface, interfering with data transmission. It is reported that "Tirada-2S" entered the troops in 2019.

Could this electronic warfare complex "light up" the European "meteorological satellites" studying our Southern Military District with curiosity? Yes, easily. Was it really? We do not know for certain.