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Home »Airliner Captain “I can’t fly the Atlantic without GPS” – NASA Report
Image: Shutterstock What's New: A NASA report of an airliner Captain who refused to believe he could safely fly the ocean without GPS. He also refused to believe his receiver was being jammed and insisted it had failed. Why It's Important: The human element is often...
GPS Jamming and Ukraine’s Electrical Grid – Cisco Talos
Image: Shutterstock What's New: An interesting blog post about overcoming the impact of Russia's GPS jamming on Ukraine's electrical grid. Why It's Important: GPS underpins all kinds of infrastructure, including electrical grids. If a nation does not have a resilient...
Lots of hostility in space – Secure World Foundation’s 2024 Global Counterspace Report
Image: Secure World Foundation What's New: Secure World Foundation's annual report on global counterspace capabilities. Why It's Important: We have put a lot of really important things in space. It is essential we understand the threats to them. What Else to Know: The...
UK warns aircraft about GNSS interference. Lists poss impacts – UK Civil Aviation Authority
Image: Shutterstock What's New: A recent new UK warning for aircraft about GNSS interference. It also lists some of the systems that can fail when GPS/GNSS is not available. Why It's Important: Pilots need to stay on their toes in such situations. Always good to...
‘How to buy resilient PNT’ – DHS provides guidance
image: RNT Foundation What's New: The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency at DHS has developed and issued guidance about how to procure resilient PNT services. Why It's Important: While it doesn't tell users what systems to get or what to do, it does...
Live GPS Spoofing Tracker – Great site & tool by Zurich University of Applied Sciences
Image: Zurich University of Applied Sciences What's New: An interactive site that displays GPS spoofing (not jamming) in near-real time. Why It's Important: Spoofing is far worse than jamming. Rather than no information, users have bad information. This can prevent...
Russia’s GPS meddling in the Baltic Sea demands NATO action, Sweden’s naval chief says – Defense One
Image: Shutterstock What's New: Possibly the first time a government official has said publicly Russia is responsible for GPS interference in the Baltic. Why It's Important: It is a necessary first step to NATO engaging on the issue and seeking an end to the jamming...
America is losing its GPS dominance to China’s BeiDou satnav – SpaceNews
Image: China Shijian 21 Launch, 24 Oct 2021: China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation What's New: Another reminder that GPS is falling (has fallen) behind China's BeiDou and this is a bad thing for the U.S. Why It's Important: It degrades US hard and soft...
‘No GPS from Poland to the Persian Gulf’ – SAS Longhaul flight
Image: FlightRadar24/YouTube What's New: Cockpit video of a flight from Copenhagen to Bangkok. Lots of GPS disruption, pilots describing systems that don't work and the things they do to compensate. Why It's Important: Lots of safety systems are disabled and pilot...
Easter Jamming: 63 Hours of GPS Signal Attacks – Location Business News
Image: Shutterstock What's New: Certainly not aircraft in the Baltic being jammed. That has been happening periodically since December. 63 hours does seem to be a record for a period of continuous disruption. Why It's Important: Disrupting GPS signals degrades the...
Israel Scrambles GPS Signals as Country Girds for Potential Retaliation From Iran – Wall Street Journal
Image: Iranian Shaded Drone - Shutterstock What's New: Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) spoofing GPS in the middle of the country to protect against drones and missiles. Why It's Important: The spoofing is also interfering with domestic use of GPS for transportation....
Preventing a “Space Pearl Harbor”: Rep. Turner leads the charge – Space Review
Image: "Space Force" TV Show/ YouTube What's New: Space strategy and policy expert Brian Chow's OpEd in The Space Review. Why It's Important: America must start planning and preventing conflicts in space. Especially those that could impact our essential GPS PNT...
The Confusing Tale of NITRO – Institute of Navigation Newsletter
Image: National Guard flood rescue by Staff Sgt. Jonathan Shaw.jpg The author is President of the RNT Foundation. Spring 2024 BACKING-UP GPS The Confusing Tale of NITRO Dana A. Goward An Uncomplicated Beginning In many ways this should have been a fairly simple story....
PNT Advisory Board at 20: Still serving up big ideas – GPS World
Image: NASA Note: The author is President of the RNT Foundation PNT Advisory Board at 20: Still serving up big ideas March 28, 2024 - By Dana Goward Quickly prototype a GNSS interference detection and reporting system. Implement an internet-based High...
“This is why lots of errors are occurring during flights” – Mena
Image: Shutterstock What's New: Reinforcement from an industry rep of the idea that GPS/GNSS disruption increases risk in aviation. Why It's Important: Recognizing the risk is the first step in preventing bad things from happening. When things go wrong, companies and...
Airlines report GPS signal jamming: Russia gets the blame – Politico
Image: Shutterstock What's New: GPS jamming and spoofing reported in Politico. Why It's Important: Interference with GPS and other GNSS is mostly a political issue, not a technical or engineering one. It is good to see the issue being reported by an outlet focused on...
As Threats in Space Mount, U.S. Lags in Protecting Key Services – New York Times
Image: Shutterstock What's New: An article discussing the relative PNT capabilities of China and the U.S. Why It's Important: China's far greater ability to withstand disruption of PNT from space gives it huge strategic and tactical advantages over the U.S. Strategic...
“Experts say [bridge] collapse was devastating but inevitable” – Washington Post [lessons for PNT]
Image: By David Adams - https://www.nab.usace.army.mil/Media/Images/igphoto/2003421467/ What's New: A reminder that rare events happen. They are not "never" events. Why It's Important: Essential systems, like our national PNT, must be built to withstand rare but...
FCC investigates Amazon over alleged marketing of wireless signal jammers – NBC
image: Various on-line sellers What's New: The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) says it is taking action to enforce the law against marketing, selling, and using wireless jammers, including those that target GPS/GNSS. While reports do not mention anything about...
You are invited! – Reception with the PNT Advisory Board
Hope you can join us! RSVP to [email protected]
Daily Fight for Ukraine Spectrum Superiority Puts Electronic Warfare Front, Center – National Defense
Image: Shutterstock What's New: Discussion of whether spectrum/ electronic warfare should be its own warfighting domain. Experience in Ukraine seems to indicate "yes." Why It's Important: While this may seem a sterile intellectual question, such definitions have...
Russia believed to have jammed signal on UK defence minister’s plane: Reuters – So?
image: GPS interference in the Baltic on 13 March 2024 - GPSJam.org What's New: A plane with a senior UK government official flew near Kaliningrad. NOT NEW: Planes flying near Kaliningrad having trouble receiving GPS signals. Why It's Important: Sometimes it is good...
Is using GLONASS and BeiDou a bad idea? – Dust up in D.C. as Congress asks FCC
Image: Shutterstock What's New: A letter from Rep. Gallagher, chair of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party to the FCC. It poses lots of interesting assertions and questions including: An...
Position, Navigation, and Timing Weaponization in the Maritime Domain: Orientation in the Era of Great Systems Conflict – Joint Force Quarterly
Image: Shutterstock What's New: National Defense University paper with three important messages just in the title! PNT = Weapon Maritime, like other domains, is incredibly dependent on PNT. We are in a world of great power conflict wherein every weapon available is...
Time to rethink positioning technology as a strategic asset and a cybersecurity risk – World Cargo News
Image: Shutterstock What's New: Recognition of PNT as a cyber issue in maritime cargo. Why It's Important: PNT is essential to maritime. And it is a cyber issue. Neither of these are well appreciated across the community. Maritime is involved in 95% of international...
Vodafone Turkey Adopts Advanced Timing Technology for Network Resilience, GNSS Disruptions – Inside GNSS
Image: Shutterstock What's New: Insight into what one telecom provider is doing to protect against GNSS disruptions. Why It's Important: Numerous telecom applications use GNSS timing. Synchronizing base stations so cell towers can talk to each other, for example. GNSS...
North Korea Jamming GPS Again – The Korea Herald
Image: Shutterstock What's New: A report of North Korea jamming GPS signals across the border. This is the first report we have seen of them doing this since 2016. Why It's Important: North Korea uses GPS jamming to antagonize its adversaries, much as Russia is doing...
US Sees China’s Space Threat Growing at ‘Breathtaking Pace’ – Bloomberg
Image: Shutterstock What's New: More official warnings about Chinese advances in counter-space. Why It's Important: The U.S. is more dependent on space than any other nation. As we have discussed, Threat = Intent x Capability China intends to be back on top. China has...
Space Force re-thinking GPS? – from Defense News
Image: Shutterstock What's New: Space Force seems to be wanting to re-think GPS. Why It's Important: GPS is a great space-based system, yet it has it's drawbacks. The satellites are big and really expensive They are built really well, but that means they last a long...
Satellites miss each other by less than 20 meters – LeoLabs
Image: LeoLabs What's New: Leolabs reporting a derelict Russian satellite and an operational NASA satellite, both in LEO, both non-maneuverable, passing within 20 meters of each other last week. Why It's Important: The NASA satellite could have been damaged or...
Patton: ‘Read their book!’ – China’s PNT projects and ambitions
Image: By Joseph Christian Leyendecker - Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=50423826 The movie "Patton" has the general saying at one point “Rommel, you magnificent bastard. I read your book!" as a way of explaining Patton's ability to...
GPS War: Israel’s Battle To Keep Drones Flying And Enemies Baffled – France24
Image: Shutterstock What's New: Interesting article highlighting navigation warfare in Israel/Gaza. Also, first we have seen in the press about Infinidome's new model anti-jam antenna plug-in, GPS DOME 2. Why It's Important: The same things we have been seeing in...
What Copilot AI says about GPS vulnerability
Image: Shutterstock - Interesting. The man in this stock photo looks a bit like our friend Vint Cerf at Google. What's New - This morning we noticed Microsoft 360 had put an icon on our computer tool bar for "Copilot, your everyday AI companion." - We are not really...
U.S. preparing to dispose of old Loran sites – Is that important?
Image: Loran Station Attu w/ WWII remnants - NARA & DVIDS Public Domain What's New: The U.S. government is clearing the way to dispose of approximately 25 former Loran transmission sites. Why It's Important: It may or may not be important. On the one hand, there...
The race to back up vulnerable GPS – SpaceNews
Image: U.S. Space Force What's New: Interesting article that explores some space-based and a few non-space-based options to backup GPS. Why It's Important: GPS is critical to so many technologies it is a "single point of failure" according to one National Security...
Air Force Demonstrating eLoran, 50 years after Loran-D
Image: U. S. Coast Guard What's New: An Air Force press release about an eLoran demonstration, along with some surprising statements about future deployment and use. Why It's Important: The U.S. government has been talking about GPS vulnerability, a backup and...
FBI Director Says China Cyberattacks on U.S. Infrastructure Now at Unprecedented Scale – Wall Street Journal
Image: FBI What's New: OK, you got us. It's not new. The Chinese are still hacking our infrastructure and trying to put us at a disadvantage. They were the most advanced civilization on the planet for 5,000 years and they want back on top. Why It's Important: We need...
General William Shelton, USAF (ret), joins board of RNT Foundation
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 19, 2024 Media Contact: Mr. Dana A. Goward, President 800-522-6948 [email protected] General William Shelton, USAF (ret), joins board of RNT Foundation Alexandria, Va. — The Resilient Navigation and Timing (RNT)...
PNT Advisory Board to Meet 24 & 25 April in Colorado Springs
Image: Antlers Hotel What's New: The President's National Space-based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Advisory Board has set the time and place for its next public meeting - the 24th and 25th of April at The Antlers Hotel in Colorado Springs, CO. Why It's...
Russia’s Space-based nuclear weapon? – here’s an educated guess – GPS World
Image: Shutterstock What's New: An expanded version of yesterday's post that appeared in GPS World today. Why It's Important: A possible quantum leap in Russia's ability to jam and spoof GPS around the world. What Else to Know: The article in Space Review referenced...
Officials shocked, shocked! about Russian nukes in space – ABC News
Image: KB Arsenal What's New: Warnings about Russia wanting nuclear-powered weapons in space to disrupt/destroy U.S. satellites. Why It's Important: The U.S. is far more dependent on space than any other nation. This is especially true for PNT which powers most...
Geely Launches 11 Satellites to Navigate Autonomous Vehicles – Location Business News
Image: Geely Holding Corp. What's New: Chinese auto maker Geely launching even more navigation satellites. Why It's Important: Geely has a close relationship with China's military. The satellites have more capability than PNT. So... probably more than navigating...
The END of GPS for Aviation?! Spoofing at Work – Mentour Now! Video
Image: YouTube/Mentour Now! What's New: A very good 22 minute video about how GPS works, a little history, and the issues related to jamming and spoofing in aviation. Why It's Important: These are issues not readily understood by a lot of folks. It is aways good to...
DOT Looking for Complementary PNT Tech to Test & Evaluate – SAM.gov
Image: RNT Foundation What's New: US Department of Transportation is looking to pay providers to test and evaluate their complimentary PNT systems. Why It's Important: This could be another step in the nation's slow progress toward a National Resilient PNT...
FCC Commissioner: ‘GPS/GNSS is a threat vector’ – Plus, 2008 DHS announces a solution
Image: FCC What's New: FCC Commissioner Simington gave a speech the other day. He mentioned two of our major concerns about GPS/GNSS: Other nations' GNSS have overtaken GPS - and he hints at some of the soft power implications Use of GNSS in critical infrastructure...
FAA Tells Pilots To Go Analogue As GNSS ‘Spoofing’ Incidents Increase – Forbes
Image: Shutterstock What's New: The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued a warning and direction to pilots to be careful and not use GPS/GNSS in some instances. Why It's Important: This seems to us to be a quantum step in governments admitting the...
OCX delayed a year… again (really?) – Breaking Defense
Image: U.S. Space Force What's New: The new, cybersecure ground segment for GPS has been delayed another year. Why It's Important: Improved cybersecurity and fully enabling M-Code for military users hinges upon having OCX in place. What Else to Know: Space Force has...
Ukraine will spoof GPS across the country to stop Russian drones – New Scientist
Image: Shutterstock What's New: Ukraine's top military commander announcing a nation-wide spoofing system. Why It's Important: Electronic warfare / navigation warfare is getting to be a much larger part of this conflict. Considering Israel's extensive jamming and...
GPS Spoofing Is Now Affecting Airplanes in Parts of Europe – Forbes
Image: Shutterstock What's New: An article in Forbes based on an interview with RNTF President Dana A. Goward discussing his OpEd in Breaking Defense (yesterday's post). Why It's Important: The interview includes additional info. What Else to Know: Forbes lets you...
As Baltics see spike in GPS jamming, NATO must respond – Breaking Defense
Image: GPSJam.org What's New: An OpEd by RNT Foundation President Dana A. Goward proposing NATO respond to Russia's illegal and dangerous jamming/spoofing. Why It's Important: Russia has been acting: Illegally and dangerously (yep, we said that in the first line...