Image: RNT Foundation
What’s New: The U.S. Department of Transportation has issued a Request for Information (RFI) asking if there are companies interested in providing a commercial eLoran service in the United States.
- The request goes to some lengths to ensure folks know the government will not necessarily subscribe to such a service.
Why It’s Important:
- Having a complement and backup for GPS will make GPS satellites and signals less desirable targets – so safer, more secure, more reliable.
- eLoran is very high power and very hard to jam or spoof. At least one Stanford paper on the topic said ‘It’s possible, but very difficult and would hardly be worth and adversary’s efforts. They would go after a softer target.’
- Chinese papers have said “We need this capability in the event signals from space are not available.’
What Else to Know:
- The US government decided and announced in 2008 and in 2015 it would establish an eLoran network be a complement and backup for GPS. But nothing was done.
- The U.K. government asked its industry a similar question four months ago.
- eLoran is used in many places as a complement and backup to satnav services.
LINK TO RFI
