INSIDE THE SPACE FORCE AS IT PREPARES FOR A NEW KIND OF WAR

Working from computer screens in chilly rooms, the force has emerged as a vital part of America’s war machine amid increased competition from China and Russia.

JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, Hawaii —
It looked more like a satellite television dish than a weapon. But the antenna could fire enough electromagnetic energy to fry the satellite 22,000 miles away.

That was not the plan for tonight’s attack, however.

Instead, the salvo would be more covert — millisecond pulses of energy that would subtly disrupt the satellite’s signals, which U.S. military forces were using to communicate in the Pacific Ocean. The goal was to disguise the strike as a garbled connection that could be easily remedied by securing a loose cable or a simple reboot, leaving U.S. service members frustrated without raising their suspicions.

This is how the next war could start: invisible shots fired in space on the electromagnetic spectrum that could render U.S. fighter jets and aircraft carriers deaf and blind, unable to communicate. In this case, the “aggressors” targeting the U.S. satellite were not from China or Russia, but rather an elite squadron of U.S. Space Force Guardians mimicking how potential adversaries would act in a conflict that begins in orbit.

The July combat training exercise marked the largest one led by the Space Force, the highly secretive branch of the military with an exclusive focus on combating threats in the vast expanse beyond Earth’s atmosphere.

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