The UK military has reportedly used a ground-based electronic warfare system for about a year to jam or block satellites belonging to other countries, according to a BBC report citing a defence source. The stated purpose is defensive: to stop hostile satellites from tracking UK nuclear-armed submarines, special-forces operations or other sensitive military activity.
Jamming means deliberately transmitting interference on the radio frequencies a satellite needs. Instead of physically destroying the spacecraft, the system can deny or degrade the data it collects. The BBC did not identify which satellites were targeted, the frequencies used or where the ground system is located, so the report establishes an official account of capability and intent rather than independently verifiable incidents.
The disclosure coincides with the creation of the Royal Air Force’s Space Effects Squadron, a new unit intended to disrupt, degrade and deny threats in space. The UK Ministry of Defence says it would protect British satellites used for missile warning, military communications and navigation. Defence Secretary Wes Streeting also argued that the same infrastructure supports mobile phones, banking, weather forecasting and transport; he said losing Global Positioning System (GPS) service would cost the UK economy £1.4 billion a day.
The article discusses the creation of the Royal Air Force’s Space Effects Squadron and the UK’s move toward openly describing capabilities to interfere with satellites.
The image identifies the senior RAF figure associated with the reported expansion of UK space defence and satellite protection policy.
A key question is whether jamming can be precise enough to avoid wider disruption. The supplied reporting says the UK system is ground-based and defensive, but provides no technical evidence about targeting, frequency selection, collateral effects or how it would handle rapidly changing signals. It therefore does not answer whether civilian services could be affected or how operators would distinguish a hostile satellite from a commercial one.
The report also places the UK’s move against a wider pattern of alleged counter-space activity. A separate BBC report from 2025 quoted the head of UK Space Command saying Russian ground systems had been jamming UK military satellites on a weekly basis, while Russian satellites flew relatively close and collected information. That earlier account is contextual evidence of the threat the UK says it faces, not independent confirmation of the newly disclosed British system.
The central uncertainty remains operational: the sources do not reveal when or against whom the UK system has been used, how success is measured, or what legal and diplomatic constraints apply. What they do establish is a shift from protecting satellites against interference toward openly describing the ability to interfere with other nations’ satellites in return.