Blog Editor’s Note: The nation relies heavily on vulnerable space assets, including GPS. The Department of Homeland Security has called GPS “a single point of failure for critical infrastructure.” We hope our leaders begin to consider that the best way to protect the nation is to make space less of a single point of failure by building the complementary and backup terrestrial systems that have been long promised. Putting more of our eggs in the same basket seems to be moving in the wrong direction.
Air Force: GPS Satellites Vulnerable to Attack
U.S. unprepared for Chinese, Russian space warfare attacks
BY : Bill Gertz
March 16, 2018 5:00 am
Global Positioning System satellites that guide both precision guided weapons and car navigation systems are vulnerable to attack from Chinese and Russian lasers and missiles, Air Force officials told Congress this week.
Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson said in House testimony on Wednesday that her service is working on developing jam-proof GPS satellites that currently can be disrupted by a variety of weapons.
“With respect to the threat that we face, I think it’s everything from jamming from the surface or a cyber attack, to direct-ascent satellite weapons, either from Russia [or] in 2007 the Chinese tested an anti-satellite weapon and spread debris all over orbit,” Wilson told a House Appropriations defense subcommittee hearing.
The testimony on space warfare threats came a day after President Donald Trump told Marines in California that the military needs a “space corps.”
