UK military jamming other nations' satellites to defend itself, BBC told

The British military has been jamming or blocking satellites from other countries in order to defend itself from hostile threats, the BBC has been told.

The RAF has been using a ground-based system for the past year, which a defence source said had already been used "to deter our adversaries".

It is understood the system could be used to prevent a hostile nation's satellites from tracking the movement of the UK's nuclear armed submarines or other sensitive military operations, such as those involving special forces.

It comes as the head of the RAF said the UK faced "unprecedented threats" from adversaries in space, coinciding with the creation of a new RAF unit set up to defend Britain's satellites.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said the new Space Effects Squadron will be focused on "disrupting, degrading and denying hostile threats in space".

In a speech on Wednesday, Defence Secretary Wes Streeting said daily lives depend on satellites that power everyday technologies like mobile phones and banking apps, adding the loss of GPS would cost the UK economy £1.4bn a day.

"Our dependency on space is precisely why it is increasingly under threat from our adversaries." he said.

"We depend on them for everything from weather forecasts, energy supplies, and financial transactions to sat-navs, mobile phone connections, and Amazon deliveries," said Streeting, adding that the loss of "everyday conveniences would undermine our daily freedoms, and trust in our institutions."

Speaking at the UK Space Conference, Streeting said that threat from Britain's adversaries was growing in "scale, speed and sophistication", adding that the "challenges in space increasingly mirror the geopolitics on Earth".

A number of nations are believed to have similar ground-based systems against satellites. Last year the then head the UK's Space Command said Russia was trying to jam UK satellites with ground based systems "every week".

The defence source described the UK's terrestrial electronic warfare capability as "world leading, and more".

Last week US confirmed for the first time that it had also deployed an unspecified "weapon" in space to defend its own satellites.

Both China and Russia condemned the move - warning of an arms race in space.

However, Washington has already accused both Russian and China of developing their own space weapons - ranging from electronic jammers, lasers to blind other satellites and even projectiles that can be fired from satellites in orbit.

In May, the RAF tracked a series of "dangerous manoeuvres" by five Russian satellites moving close to two Finnish commercial satellites. The RAF's Air Chief Marshal Sir Harv Smyth said in June that a Russian satellite constellation had caused disruptions to GPS signals across Europe and Canada.

The UK has a handful of military satellites in orbit for surveillance and military communications. But it works closely with the US Space Force - which has many more.

In a separate speech at the space conference, ACM Smyth added that "unfortunately we are seeing more and more irresponsible and provocative actions from our adversaries".

ACM Smyth warned that without satellites, some of the technologies people take for granted would be lost and would make every sector "less efficient, less prosperous and less secure".

"Sat-nav systems would fail, congestion on our roads would be severe and our emergency services would take longer to help those in need," he said, adding that satellites are also needed to monitor the weather and the effects of climate change.