Image: RNT Foundation
What’s new: Proposed legislation calling for the Department of Defense (DOD) to consolidate leadership of PNT issues.
Why it’s important: In the opinion of many, including the now defunct National Space-based PNT Advisory Board, poorly structured leadership and governance has led to GPS falling far behind Bei Dou and Galileo, and the US not having the same national resilient PNT capabilities as China and Russia.
What else to know:
- The article mentions a 2022 GAO report on DOD PNT that called for more coherent leadership. That report was the third time in 15 months GAO had issued a report saying that.
- IF this stays in the bill, and IF DOD does something (neither of those are certain), it could improve things for the department’s PNT efforts.
- Legislation does not fix things. A good example in PNT-world is the Cruz-Markey National Timing Resilience and Security Act of 2018. It required DOT to establish at least a terrestrial timing system to backup GPS. Even though it was passed into law, nothing has happened. In fact, the President’s annual budget requests since then have regularly called for the law’s repeal.
- If this legislation does improve things for DOD PNT, it will do nothing for the nation’s greatest area of risk – fragile GPS signals that support virtually every aspect of the economy and daily life.
- PNT Governance: Time for a reset – Inside GNSS+
- 7 PNT Policy Myths – Inside GNSS+
House Armed Services Committee Calls for Single PNT Overseer in FY27 NDAA Markup
The House Armed Services Committee’s chairman’s mark of the fiscal year 2027 National Defense Authorization Act, released May 26, includes a provision that would establish a designated Pentagon official to oversee the Defense Department’s positioning, navigation and timing enterprise — including alternative PNT programs alongside the existing GPS architecture.
Aviation Week, which first reported the provision, noted the HASC language cited “a concerning lack of clear direction” across the portfolio. The full committee is scheduled to formally mark up the bill on June 4.
TITLE XVI—SPACE ACTIVITIES, STRATEGIC PROGRAMS, AND INTELLIGENCE MATTERS
LEGISLATIVE PROVISIONS
SUBTITLE A—SPACE ACTIVITIES
Sec. 1602—Reorganization of Oversight of the Department of Defense Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Enterprise
This section would repeal the requirement for the Council on Oversight of the Department of Defense Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) Enterprise, and instead require the Secretary of Defense, in consultation with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to designate a single official from the Department of Defense as the principal official with responsibility for the oversight of the Department of Defense position, navigation, and timing enterprise to include alternative position, navigation, and timing efforts and report directly to the Deputy Secretary of Defense.
The committee recognizes that despite previous efforts to improve oversight and execution of the PNT programs of the department, there remains a concerning lack of clear direction and sense of urgency to address existing gaps and plan for both near term and future requirements. Position, navigation, and timing is foundational to everything the joint force does, but despite this it continues to be plagued by a lack of senior oversight. User equipment is consistently out of phase with the space segment because of lack of prioritization by the services. The Next Generation Operational Control System (OCX), slated to be the new ground system, was recently canceled after decades of mismanagement by both the program office and the contractor. The space segment has only recently gotten past a backlog of unlaunched vehicles due to launch vehicle delays.
The committee also notes that there has been no updated strategy from the Department of Defense on how it plans to posture the PNT enterprise to deal with increasing threats to the space segments and exponential increase in jamming experienced by the joint force. There are many proposals to include multi-orbit constellations, commercial services, and non-space based alternative PNT solutions that the committee believes should be considered.
The committee notes that the Department needs a single individual who can be responsible and accountable for this vital mission. This section would also require the lead official to certify annually that the service budgets are fully funding user equipment and ground control systems for the PNT enterprise.
