GALAXIA- Combat Spacecraft Avionics and Electronic Warfare

One of the greatest military technology developments of the past half-century or so has been the development of sophisticated sensor and networking equipment- and electronic warfare techniques and hardware to defeat it.

Development of this technology has continued in GALAXIA, with networked, heavily-instrumented spacecraft the rule, rather than the exception. Accordingly, great efforts have been made to develop ever-more-effective countermeasures and electronic warfare.

Electronic warfare in GALAXIA can be broken up into two broad categories: sensor/targeting deception, and network intrusion ('netrusion'). The former category is somewhat self-explanatory- radio-frequency devices are basically used to interfere with hostile RADAR, breaking or complicating target locks. The latter involves using targeted malware (effectively a militarized computer 'virus') to compromise command-and-control networks, effectively gaining a foothold inside a hostile spacecraft's computer systems. The malware may, from this point, interfere with or degrade sensor performance, introduce errors into the computer system, attempt to depressurize the target craft, or overheat its reactor, just to name a few examples.

Sensor technology has also advanced, particularly in development of unconventional-frequency scanning equipment. This particularly includes ultraviolet-sensing equipment for detecting intermittent, but extremely hot, drive plumes. When used in concert with infrared sensing, UV is extremely useful for long-range detection. Additionally, attempts at reduced-signature spacecraft are nearly always thwarted by their inability to evade ultraviolet sensors.

RADAR tends to use AESA (active electronically-scanned array) systems as a combined sensor and electronic warfare system. AESA units, in addition to their utility for generating firing solutions, can be used as a directed-energy weapon to temporarily or permanently 'blind' missile seekers, serving as a third line of a spacecraft's self-protection equipment, behind jamming and interceptor rounds. AESA has also been used as part of datalink systems, and to transmit the aforementioned malware into hostile crafts' systems.

Those who ignore the 'electronic battlefield' in favor of pure 'physical' warfare do so in error. Computer viruses and focused electromagnetic radiation are just as deadly, if not more so in some cases, as a missile or Gauss cannon projectile.