CLASSIFIED

WSF-M

US Military Weather & Space Environment Satellite · US Space Force / Ball Aerospace

WSF-M measures ocean wind speed and sea ice thickness for Navy ship routing and Arctic operations — but its most important instrument does something the Pentagon has needed since the Cold War and never stopped needing: measuring the electrically charged particle density high in the atmosphere that determines whether long-range military radio and radar signals will actually work. Solar storms can scramble that layer unpredictably, and a fleet without warning could suddenly lose secure communications or over-the-horizon radar coverage at the worst possible moment. WSF-M replaces sensors the US Air Force has flown continuously, in one form or another, since the 1960s.