The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has launched a new program to enhance the U.S. military’s high-frequency radio capabilities necessary to achieve multi-domain operations.

The Ouija program aims to gain precise insights into HF radio wave propagation in the ionosphere by using sensors on low-orbiting satellites to gather in-space measurements of electron density, DARPA said Friday.

“Ouija will augment ground-based measurements with in-situ measurements from space, in very low-Earth orbit, to develop and validate accurate, near real-time HF propagation predictions,” said Jeff Rogers, Ouija program manager in DARPA’s Strategic Technology Office.

DARPA has issued a solicitation for the first of the two technical areas of the Ouija program that will focus on developing, launching and operating small satellites carrying scientific instrumentation.

The Ouija scientific payload will use or adapt commercial-off-the-shelf components to measure electron density from space, the agency said.

DARPA plans to issue a separate solicitation for the second technical area that will develop assimilative models designed to collect in-situ measurements of electron density from a VLEO satellite and embed that data into HF propagation code to validate with data measured on-orbit.

Eric Desautels, acting deputy assistant secretary for arms control, verification and compliance at the State Department, said the U.S. government intends to introduce a proposal that would prohibit “purposeful interference” with command-and-control systems of national security satellites in addition to a ban on anti-satellite weapon tests, Breaking Defense reported Friday.

On April 18, Vice President Kamala Harris announced that the U.S. committed not to carry out destructive direct-ascent anti-satellite missile tests as part of efforts to establish international rules and norms for the responsible and sustainable use of space.

“We recognize our ASAT commitment doesn’t cover all ASAT threats, including space-based ASAT systems. But we think it is important to take a first step to address the most pressing threats,” Desautels said during a webinar.

A United Nations group, dubbed Open Ended Working Group on Reducing Space Threats Through Norms, Rules and Principles of Responsible Behaviours, is set to conduct a series of discussions beginning on May 9 in Geneva and Desautels said the Biden administration would want OEWG to include in the discussions additional ideas.

These include improving communications, advancing responsible behavior to facilitate safe operations of national security satellites to prevent harmful interference and collisions and “elaborating best practices of responsible behavior that avoid simulating or testing a set weapons in the direction of or in close proximity to another state satellites.”

Desatels said the UN working group should help ensure that norms and principles agreed upon do not “restrict the peaceful uses of outer space technology by developing countries.”