Space Force Satellite Jammers: RMT Enters Production
The first production Remote Modular Terminal jammers are rolling out as the Space Force estimates buying 32 to 56 L3Harris Meadowlands systems.
The U.S. Space Force is fielding more of the weapons it uses to cut adversaries off from their satellites. The first full-scale production units of its Remote Modular Terminal (RMT), a ground-based jammer aimed at satellite communications, will roll off the line over about four weeks, Roger Stapleton, general manager of GRVTY’s Spectrum Operations Business Unit, told Aviation Week on 13 October at the Association of the U.S. Army annual meeting in Washington.
Two days later, Space Systems Command said it estimates buying between 32 and 56 of L3Harris Technologies’ larger Meadowlands jammers, Defense Daily reported. The figure appeared in a market research notice on a possible Meadowlands sustainment contract.
Two jammers, two sizes
The RMT began as a Space Rapid Capabilities Office prototype built by Northstrat with support from CACI under a contract of about $22 million awarded in 2022, according to Aviation Week. All 24 jammers in that first order were delivered within two years, the first within 18 months. GRVTY, a company backed by Arlington Capital Partners, bought Northstrat in May. Kelly Hammett, a former director of the Space RCO, has said the office planned to buy at least 160 of the terminals.
The terminals are already in use. Lt. Gen. Gregory Gagnon, who leads the Space Force’s Combat Forces Command, told The Wall Street Journal in a video interview published 14 October that their locations are kept secret to protect them from targeting, but “they are used in combat and are emplaced, actually, globally,” Aviation Week reported. The account does not say where or against whom.
Meadowlands is the heavier system. It upgrades the Counter Communications System (CCS) 10.2 and was accepted for operational use by Combat Forces Command on 8 June, according to a Space Force release. Guardians of Mission Delta 3, the service’s space electromagnetic warfare unit, operate it. Air & Space Forces Magazine reported that the upgrade reuses existing CCS hardware but replaces its electronics, cutting the number of boxes needed to move it from 23 to seven. L3Harris delivered the first production unit late last year and is working toward one unit a month, the magazine said.
| Item | Remote Modular Terminal (RMT) | Meadowlands (CCS 10.3) |
|---|---|---|
| Builder | GRVTY (formerly Northstrat), with CACI support | L3Harris Technologies |
| Mission | Jamming satellite communications in multiple orbits | Detect, deny, disrupt and degrade adversary satellite communications |
| Status | Production units due within about four weeks of 13 October | Operationally accepted 8 June 2026 |
| Planned quantity | At least 160 (former Space RCO director) | 32 to 56 (Space Systems Command estimate) |
| Notable detail | Block 0 uses Ku band; Block 1 to cover multiple bands (Secure World Foundation, via Aviation Week) | Seven transport boxes instead of 23 for CCS 10.2 |
Table compiled by Peter’s World from the Aviation Week, Defense Daily, Space Force and Air & Space Forces Magazine reports listed under Sources.
Budget and production pressure
The Space Force’s fiscal 2027 request asks for $450 million to produce Meadowlands and projects another $605 million for more systems from fiscal 2028 through 2031, according to Air & Space Forces Magazine. It also seeks about $40 million for counter-communications research, including about $29 million for an Electromagnetic Threat Integration Program to develop software and tactics, and money to stand up five new space electronic warfare tactical operations centers. Mission Delta 3 runs one such center today, at Peterson Space Force Base, Colorado. The magazine reported that the request includes $21 billion for “space control,” a 158 percent increase over fiscal 2026, much of it classified. These figures are the service’s request, not enacted funding.
Space Systems Command wants Meadowlands to be upgradeable. Its architecture “will be designed to host core capabilities and/or other more sophisticated ’plug and play’ type modules to address the ever-increasing number of technologies and assets available to our adversaries,” the command said in the notice quoted by Defense Daily. On the RMT side, Stapleton said GRVTY has added suppliers for antennas and power amplifiers to produce at capacity, though, like much of the industry, it has struggled to source long-lead parts on rapid timelines. He said the company and the Pentagon are discussing next-generation requirements and hinted at a model able to target several satellite signals at once.
What the Space Force says jamming has done
The Space Force has pointed to Operation Midnight Hammer, the 21–22 June 2025 U.S. strike on Iran’s Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan nuclear sites in which seven B-2 bombers dropped 14 GBU-57 bunker-buster bombs, according to the Pentagon. In its Meadowlands release, the service said its electromagnetic warfare operators “successfully created a silence zone to ensure secure bomber ingress and egress, effectively halting adversary communications.” It did not name the systems involved, and that claim has not been independently verified.
Why it matters
Peter’s World analysis, based on the sources cited in this article.
Jamming is the counterspace weapon the Space Force is most willing to discuss. Air & Space Forces Magazine described Meadowlands as one of only a handful of space weapons the service has revealed publicly, while most of the $21 billion space control request sits in the classified budget. Unlike a missile fired at a satellite, a jammer temporarily disrupts signals and leaves no debris in orbit, which makes it usable short of all-out war.
In our view, the two programs point to a two-tier approach: a large number of small, dispersed RMTs that are hard to find and target, alongside a smaller fleet of heavier Meadowlands systems run by trained crews. The risks are supply chains for antennas and amplifiers, a budget still waiting on Congress, and adversaries who field their own jammers and spread their communications across more satellites. The jammers sit beside the service’s push to watch other nations’ satellites, such as the GHOST-R reconnaissance prototypes, and the wider shift toward non-kinetic weapons seen in the military’s directed-energy counter-drone pilot.
What to watch: delivery of the first production RMTs; any Meadowlands sustainment solicitation; the final fiscal 2027 space control numbers; where the five new operations centers go; and whether the Space Force says more about jamming in the Iran war, which Peter’s World follows on its Iran War Tracker.
Sources
- Aviation Week, New USSF Remote Satellite Jammers Coming Off Production Line, 16 October 2026.
- Defense Daily, U.S. Space Force Forecasts Buy of 32 to 56 Meadowlands Jammers, 16 October 2026.
- U.S. Space Force Combat Forces Command, U.S. Space Force grows electromagnetic warfare capability with Meadowlands operational acceptance, 26 June 2026.
- Air & Space Forces Magazine, Space Force Approves New Satellite Jammer for Operational Use, 29 June 2026.
- DOD News via af.mil, Hegseth, Caine laud success of U.S. strike on Iran nuke sites, 22 June 2025.
