CONTENT BEYOND THE SYLLABUS TITLE AIM : ELECTRONICS INTELLIGENCE

: Electronics intelligence (ELINT) is a branch of signals intelligence, which targets non-communications signals intelligence, such as radar and navigation signals. The Joint Chiefs of Staff define it as "Technical and geolocation intelligence derived from foreign non communications electromagnetic radiations emanating from other than nuclear detonations or radioactive sources

OBJECTIVE:
Both ELINT and SIGINT were critical in the Battle of Britain, and some of the ELINT details were declassified before the 1975 declassification of the COMINT success against the German Enigma machine. See SIGINT in the Second World War - Battle of Britain . One of the first and critical aspects has been called the "battle of the beams", in which the British scientific intelligence organization, under R.V. Jones, determined that the German night bombing attacks were guided by electronic navigation signals sent from occupied Europe. Once the systems were understood, it was possible to mislead the bombers, such that they bombed open country, or, on a few wondrous occasions, became so disoriented that they landed at airfields in the U.K. It includes the following 1."White Cloud" Space borne ELINT System 2. White Cloud Naval Ocean Surveillance System (NOSS) 3. SB-WASS - Space Based Wide Area Surveillance System.

1. The U.S. Navy's "White Cloud" Space borne ELINT System

[Kosmicheskaya Sistema Radiotekhnicheskoy Razvedki VMS SShA "Uayt Klaud"]by Major A. AndronovZarubezhnoye Voyennoye Obozreniye [Foreign Military Review] (ISSN 0134921X), No.7, 1993, pp.57-60 translated by Allen Thomson
The US Navy's spaceborne electronic intelligence (ELINT) system, White Cloud, is based on SSU (Subsatellite Unit) satellites and is intended for

determining the location of warships of foreign states and following them by the method of taking bearings on the ships' onboard radioelectronic equipment from several positions. Official Pentagon representatives try not to attract attention to this system, since it is the principal means of over-thehorizon reconnaissance and target designation for the US Navy's weapons systems. In comparison with other American reconnaissance satellites, (for example, "Keyhole" and "Lacrosse") the SSU satellites are mentioned comparatively infrequently and have various names: White Cloud, Classic Wizard, and Parcae. The last designation more precisely reflects the mission and operating principle of the system's satellites. The mythological Parcae were the three daughters of Zeus and the goddess Themida (the SSU satellites are launched in groups of three and fly relatively close together.) One of the daughters spins the thread of fate for each mortal (one satellite has a wide observation swath, but cannot exactly determine the coordinates of radio emitters). The second daughter measures out a length of thread for each person (when two satellites get a fix on the shipborne emitters, the position is obtained, but with some ambiguity). The third sister (Atropos - "she from whom one may not flee") cuts the measured thread of life (the third satellite, getting a fix on the emitters' signals, enables their coordinates to be determined precisely and then transmitted to Navy ships for weapons employment. Experiments on space reconnaissance of radio signals in support of the Navy were carried out in the US from the early 1960s using small Air Force "Ferret" ELINT satellites. However, they could not determine the direction and speed of travel of naval targets, inasmuch as they were developed to fix the coordinates of immobile air defense complexes on the ground. Therefore, at the end of the 1960s, the Navy's White Cloud program began to develop the specialized SSU ELINT satellites. The first experimental Navy ELINT satellites were launched in 1971 using the Thorad-Agena booster and received the designation SSU-A1, -A2 and -A3. The Agena stage with a restartable engine dispensed the small, 123 kg, SSU satellites. Using the first experimental satellites, which were made by the Naval Research Laboratory, the principle of multi-site direction-finding of shipboard emitters from orbit was worked out, the on-board gravity-gradient stabilization apparatus was tested, as was signal intercept and transmission to Earth, and the optimal parameters of the working orbit were selected. In 1976-1980 the Pentagon deployed on orbit an ELINT system consisting of three groups of first-generation SSU satellites. The satellites, mounted on a NOSS satellite-platform with a restartable liquid engine, were launched from the Western Test Range on an Atlas booster into circular orbits at an altitude of 1100 km and inclination of 63.5 degrees. Forming the orbital layout of the group was carried out in the process of multi-burn maneuvering of the satellite-platform and sequential separation from it of the three small SSU satellites. Beginning with the third group of satellites, launched in 1980, development and production of the satellites was carried out by the firm Martin Marietta, and the reconnaissance equipment was built by E- Systems.

From 1983 to 1987 a total of five groups of modernized SSU-1A satellites with upgraded stabilization and data transmission systems were launched to replace failed satellites. In external appearance, the SSU satellites (Fig.1) are reminiscent of the Navy's Transit navigational satellites. They have gravity gradient orientation booms 10-15 meters long. These ensure that the side of the satellite body where the signal intercept antennas are mounted is constantly oriented toward the Earth. The satellites maintain an assigned position in a group at distances of 30 to 240 km one from the other by using on-board low-thrust engines. As a result of ground processing of direction-finding data on the signals from target emitters provided by a group of satellites, and also sequentially by several groups of satellites, the coordinates, direction and speed of travel of ships are obtained. Calculations indicate that in order to compute the direction and speed of ships using one group of satellites it is necessary to have fixes with a precision of the order of 2 to 3 km, or 8 to 10 km if four satellites are used. The task of determining the bearings of naval targets is made easier by the fact that practically all ships have continually operating emitters fulfilling various purposes: communications, navigation, surface and air search, and weapons control. For determining the bearings of signals from different directions using the method of time difference of arrival, the intersatellite baselines (the imaginary straight line segments connecting the satellites) should form a right angle (or, at least, not be parallel). These conditions are fulfilled through the orbital parameters chosen for the satellites. As a group flies over the equator the baselines form a figure which is close to a right triangle (Fig. 2). However, in the polar regions, as the satellites go through latitudes which correspond to the maximum inclination of their orbits (around 63 deg.), the form of the group changes, and the satellites follow practically along one and the same trajectory one after the other. In order to avoid decreased signal bearing accuracy, the apogee portion of the orbit of one of the satellites is shifted relative to the apogee portions of the others. Thanks to this, in the polar regions one of the satellites moves 50 to 100 km lower [sic; this doesn't seem to agree with Figures 2 and 3] than the remaining ones, which lets the direction-finding baselines spread out and eliminates the "zone of inaccessability." (Fig. 3) In its fully deployed form the Navy's White Cloud ELINT system has four groups of SSU satellites with orbital planes distributed at 60 to 120 degrees along the equator and a complex of ground stations for receiving and processing signals located in the US (Blossom Point, Maryland and Winter Harbor, Maine), Great Britain (Edsel, Scotland), on the islands Guam, Diego Garcia, Adak, and in other locations. Operational control of the system is carried out by the Navy Space Command, and processing of the reconnaissance signals is done in the Navy's information center in Suitland

(Maryland) and regional Navy intelligence centers in Spain, Great Britain, Japan and Hawaii. A satellite group is able to receive signals from a zone with a radius of about 3500 km (on the surface of the Earth) and under certain conditions can monitor the same object 108 minutes later. A system of four satellite groups enables any region at a latitude of 40 to 60 degrees to be monitored more than 30 times a day. A fundamental problem in performing multiposition signal intercept by the time difference of arrival method is the necessity of synchronizing the onboard radio receivers in an SSU satellite and determining the intersatellite (baseline) distances. In the opinion of American specialists, the problem of receiver synchronization and ranging can be solved by placing millimeter wave communications apparatus on the SSU satellites. Operations of the ELINT satellites have demonstrated that they have a quite high reliability, with a mean operating lifetime in orbit of seven to eight years. The course of deployment of the Navy ELINT system and replacement of satellites is shown in Table 1. It is easy to see that only two SSU satellite groups (the fifth and eighth) gave out on orbit after two or three years. This might be connected with problems with a satellite: if even one satellite fails, operational utility and emitter location capability worsen significantly. The routine replacement of the SSU-1A satellites, which were launched in 1983-1987, with second-generation SSU-2 satellites began in 1990. Originally, they were intended to be launched on the Shuttle, but after the catastrophe of 1986 it was decided to use the Titan-4 heavy booster as the principal launch vehicle. SSU-2 has a new design and updated reconnaissance and data communication equipment. It lacks, in particular, the transmitters which worked in the 1427-1434 MHz band and interfered with radioastronomical observations. The configuration of the SSU group remained as before, but the dimensions of the direction-finding triangle of the new satellites were almost two times less than those of the earlier satellites. This could be connected with an expansion of the band of intercepted signals into the centimetric part of the SHF band, in which shipboard emitters use antennas with narrow main beams. Completion of the deployment of the White Cloud ELINT system consisting of four groups of the new SSU-2 satellites is expected in 1995, and their employment will continue to the end of the 1990s. The characteristics of the SSU system is given in Table 2. The space-based ELINT system is one of the basic means for over- thehorizon targeting for warships which are equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles. The information from space and other reconnaissance systems is transmitted from data processing centers to ships by the Fleetsatcom and

Leasesat satellites through the channels of the TADIX subsystem for tactical data interchange. In the early 1990s serial production of this system's receivers was begun; they are intended for installation on ships of various classes (command, control, major combatants) and nuclear attack submarines. The foreign press did not report information on the successful employment of the White Cloud Navy ELINT system during combat operations in the Persian Gulf, obviously because of the secrecy of the program and the limited nature of Iraqi naval operations. However, it cannot be excluded that the system operated in conjunction with the Air Force Ferret ELINT satellites to seek out the Iraqi air defense system, since the frequencies of ground-based and shipborne emitters are basically the same. In this case the White Cloud Naval ELINT system could have supported a more frequent scrutiny of Iraq and a more precise location of the signals of ground-based and airborne emitters than could the Ferret satellites.

2. White Cloud Naval Ocean Surveillance System (NOSS)

The White Cloud Naval Ocean Surveillance System (NOSS) performed wide area ocean surveillance, primarily for the Navy White Cloud is used to determine the location of radio and radars transmissions, using triangulation. The identity of naval units can be deduced by analysis of the operating frequencies and transmission patterns of the emitters. Each NOSS launch placed a cluster of one primary satellite and three smaller sub- satellites (that trail along at distances of several hundred kilometers) into low polar orbit. This satellite array can determine the location of radio and radars transmitters, using triangulation, and the identity of naval units, by analysis of the operating frequencies and transmission patterns. NOSS used the ELINT technique called "time difference of arrival", TDOA, rather than true interferometry. Conceptually, TDOA and interferometry are very similar. though distinct, techniques. They may also use the frequencydomain version of TDOA, FDOA, which exploits doppler shifts somewhat in the way the COSPAS/SARSATs do. Although there does not appear to be a definitely fixed constellation size for White Cloud, at the beginning of 1990 the constellation apparently consisted of two clusters of primary and secondary satellites, launched on 9 February 1986 and 15 May 1987. No launches under this program have been conducted since 1987. The White Cloud is being replaced by a Space Based Wide Area Surveillance System (SB-WASS). This program, which was initiated in the early 1980s, would be used to track ships and aircraft on a global basis. The Navy was concerned primarily with defending carrier battle groups from long range

Soviet aviation, while the Air Force requirements focused on extending the strategic air defense warning network over the Arctic Ocean.

3. SB-WASS - Space Based Wide Area Surveillance System

In the early 1990s White Cloud was replaced by more capable satellites related to the Space Based Wide Area Surveillance System (SB-WASS). This system, which extensively studied overtly during the late 1980s, would use either radar (the Air Force proposal) or an infrared sensor (the Navy idea). Concerns about the high cost of this system, as well as other technical and operational uncertainties, led to postponement of full-scale development of the acknowledged system to 1995, with a first test flight anticipated around 1999 The Space Based Wide Area Surveillance System (SB-WASS), with potential NATOand Canadian participation, would be used to track ships and aircraft on a global basis, although there is intense disagreement over the type of sensor that would be used. The Navy favored passive infrared sensors that would track the heat emitted by ships and aircraft, while the Air Force favored an active radar system, which it believes would have a superior allweather capabilityThese technical preferences mark a reversal from earlier preferences. Navy interest in space-based radar extended from the Albatross studies of the early 1960's through the Clipper Bow effort of the late 1970's. The Air Force and DARPA spent almost $500 million developing the Teal Ruby infrared system before deciding not to fly it. The choice is more than one of engineering convenience, since the infrared system could require as few as four satellites for continental air defense or 8 to 10 for global coverage, while the radar system could require anywhere from 8 to 24 massive spacecraft (weighing over 11,000 kilogramscosting from $8 billionup to $20 billion. The Navy was interested primarily in a system to assist with fleet air defense, while the Air Force requirements also extend to strategic air defense, support of forces forward deployed in areas such as the Persian Gulf, as well as drug interdiction. The Navy is seeking a system that will be responsive to tasking by fleet commanders, while the Air Force prefers a system that will be centrally directed by the U.S. Space Command. The services also differ on how the space- based system would complement terrestrial systems, with the Air Force claiming that the space-based system could replace ground-based and airbased radars (such as AWACS); and the Navy seeing the space-based system more as a complement to terrestrial systems. However, there were serious questions concerning the ability of the SB-WASS to track stealth targets, as well as concerns about the vulnerability of these low-flying satellites to Soviet ASAT attack; and in 1989 approval of development of this system has been deferred to 1990, with a first test flight

anticipated around 1995. In 1991, the overtly acknowledged program was terminated. Interestingly, there were parallel acknowledged and unacknowledged versions of this program, whose primary difference was that the unacknowledged program was actually conducting the efforts that the acknowledged program characterized merely as future plans. Initially, satellites were launched by both the Air Force, using a rotating radar antenna, and the Navy, using an infrared sensor. The characteristics of spacecraft launched by the Titan 2 and Titan 4 boosters, beginning in 1989, demonstrate the existence of the parallel unacknowledged SB- WASS program, which actually flew spacecraft resembling those considered in the acknowledged program. Three launches of the Titan 2 in 1988, 1989 and 1992 placed single spacecraft into orbit, with these spacecraft exhibiting regular flashing reflection patterns, as would be expected from the rotating reflector radar antenna planned for the Air Force SB-WASS.