The 527th, together with its allied 26th Space Aggressor Squadron, a Reserve unit, teach how to differentiate between mechanical failures and other possible causes. Subject areas include war-fighter satellite communications, precision navigation and timing, and they do it by blocking the airmen's access to those capabilities.

The 26th Space Aggressor Squadron's Lt. Col. Michael Assid said that while an Airman controlling a UAV receives a "white card" informing him that his or her UAV feed is offline, things change when the UAV data feed simply disappears.

Assid said: "Our training audiences observe the effects of jamming, which are largely theoretical to them coming in."

A training exercise of particular importance is the "Red Flag" aerial exercises, held periodically at the Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., since 1975.

The Red Flag aerial war games are intended to train U.S., NATO and other allied countries' pilots in real combat situations between two teams, the good guys (Blue Team) and the aggressors (Red Team).

Although live GPS and satellite communications jamming is fairly new to Red Flag, the combat aviation community is learning quickly how to counter or mitigate these threats.

Assid said: "When we first went to Red Flag, the Blue Forces didn't really know what to think of us. Then we started to show how a space-savvy adversary could severely hinder the air and ground campaign. Overnight, we became the number-one time-sensitive target and were prosecuted as such during each exercise scenario.

"Education is theory: read a book, write a paper, what have you. Training is practical application. It answers the critical 'Why do I care?' question for the warfighter. We provide real jamming signals -- we want the training audience to feel the effects of the systems and capabilities we emulate. These days, we do a lot of GPS and SATCOM jamming, though we perform some other functions ... and the mission is always evolving.

"Every SATCOM transmitter is potentially a jammer. Any reasonably intelligent adversary could acquire information they need to jam a SATCOM signal. It takes a little technical know-how, certainly; but after that, it's just a matter of intent. This threat is here to stay, and people are becoming more receptive to that. I have the best job in the Air Force: I get to be a bad guy, and by doing so, I make the good guys better. If I get a 'splat' call and have to shut down my jammers, I consider that a success."

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