Image: Netflix/Youtube
The 1997 James Bond film “Tomorrow Never Dies” the evil-doer spoofs GPS and lures a British warship into violating Chinese territorial waters sparking an international incident in which the ship and a pair of Chinese fighter jets are lost.
It wasn’t until 2011 that a real life instance of GPS spoofing was reported in the media. A US drone operated by the CIA in Afghanistan was apparently spoofed by Iran and caused to land at an Iranian Air Force base. U.S. authorities first said GPS spoofing wasn’t possible. After Todd Humphrey’s showed it was entirely possible, they said spoofing wasn’t what happened. Yet the Iranians clearly had the drone, said that they had spoofed it, and the U.S. government had no alternative explanation of how it happened.
In May of 2020, the TV show “Space Force” premiered on Netflix. At the end of its first episode a Chinese spacecraft clips the solar panels off the recently launched U.S. Epsilon 6 satellite. – The irony is that the mission of Epsilon 6 and its “Kinetic Disabling System” is to protect other U.S. satellites.
So, 14 years between a movie predicting a military power being spoofed and the first incident being reported.
But it was less than a year after the first episode of “Space Force” that General Raymond (of the real Space Force) told us the threat was far too real.
Perhaps we are getting more realistic about our vulnerabilities and are more willing to acknowledge the capabilities of our adversaries.
See also: “China Says Its New ASAT Missile Can Not Only ‘Melt Down’ Enemy Satellites But Also Capture Them In Orbit,” from the Eurasia Times.
