Image: Xona Space Systems
Blog Editor’s Note: An interesting report from the Munich Satellite Navigation Summit.
There is a place in a complete and coherent PNT architecture for LEO constellations. Especially if the primary service is PNT, vice it being a secondary or inferred product.
Yet we caution that even though some LEO constellations my operate independently of GPS/GNSS, they might not be the failsafe/fallback some would like.
Signals from LEO systems will be stronger and presumably more resilient to jamming, for example. But, as recent history has shown, signals from LEO satellites can also be interfered with.
And while lower orbits might provide a bit more protection against solar activity, note the comment in the article that commercial LEO systems are not “…developed under a Cold-War paradigm” and don’t need “rugged, radiation-resistant hardware.”
As the rep from the European Space Agency said, LEO PNT must be “…a key part in a larger, multi-layered system-of-systems.”
