The U.S. Space Force said on Feb. 17 that its Space and Missile Systems Center’s (SMC) Wideband Global SATCOM (WGS) Mitigation and Anti-Jam Enhancement (MAJE) program demonstrated the geo-location of jamming signals in the fourth quarter of 2020.
SMC said that it conducted three system tests–virtually, due to COVID-19 restrictions–in the final quarter of last year. The tests verified MAJE system design and the system’s ability “to provide telemetry and successfully locate signals interfering with WGS satellites” for the 10 Boeing [BA] WGS satellites, per SMC.
“With the support of MAJE prime contractor Boeing, test events were executed by a combined government and industry team,” SMC said. “Testing involved personnel from the Army’s Space and Missile Defense Command, Army Project Manager Defense Communications and Army Transmissions Systems, Boeing, and SMC working together virtually.”
MAJE is a series of software and hardware upgrades for the Army-operated Global SATCOM Configuration Control Element (GSCCE) ground system to detect, identify, geo-locate and Radio Frequency interference with the WGS 1-10 satellites.
Space Force plans to receive and launch WGS-11 in 2024 (Defense Daily, Sept. 21, 2020). While WGS-11 will not have MAJE, it is to be able to shape its narrower beams against jamming threats and is to have twice the communications capacity of each of the current 10 WGS satellites. An addition of anti-jam MAJE capability for WGS-11 would have to go through the requirements proces, SMC said.
An SMC “Pacesetter” program, WGS-11 is to use commercial practices to provide multiple smaller, more agile beams that could be more effective in an electronically contested environment.
SMC said that it virtually tested the First Article Test Increment 3 (FAT-3) of MAJE last June 18.
Participants in the FAT-3 testing included the Space Force; U.S. Army; Aerospace Corp., which oversaw the test; and Boeing, which had equipment under test at the company’s Mission Operations Center in Colorado Springs, Colo.
Virtual testing of MAJE’s FAT-4 in the final quarter of last year “showcased MAJE’s ability to accurately locate signals interfering with WGS,” SMC said on Feb. 17.
The first two MAJE tests in the last quarter of 2020–before FAT-4–were the Maintenance Engineering Evaluation, which verified system design and ease of system maintenance–and the Payload Application Software (PLAS) Formal Qualification Testing (FQT), which “demonstrated MAJE’s ability to provide satellite telemetry monitoring and control, as well as management of WGS specific payload functionality,” SMC said on Feb. 17.
FAT-5, the final increment of FAT testing, is to demonstrate that MAJE is ready for integration with Army subsystems.
The transition of MAJE to the Army for operational use is expected by spring next year. MAJE is to double the anti-jam capabilities of WGS for more than 16,000 users, Maj Shawna Matthys, SMC’s WGS-11+ program manager, said in a statement.
Work on MAJE began in early 2016 when the Air Force awarded Boeing a $55 million contract for an X-Band anti-jam upgrade focusing on the ground segment and enabling WGS to locate jammers and adjust the satellite beams to neutralize the jammers (Defense Daily, May 10, 2016).