Dana Goward, President of the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation, introducing Brad Parkinson and Matteo Luccio, GPS World EIC. (Image: RNTF)
On December 5, in Houston, Texas, at a gala event to celebrate the 50th anniversary of GPS hosted by the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation, Matteo Luccio, Editor-in-Chief of GPS World, interviewed Brad Parkinson.
Here are two excerpts from the interview:
How does GPS today differ from the design that came out of the Lonely Halls meeting 50 years ago this past September?
Well, I’m very proud of what happened because, to my knowledge, there is no fundamental difference. Basically, that fundamental design has held up. … As a matter of fact, I still have one of the old Trimble handhelds, it’s called an EnsignGPS. It was one of those little devices that got shipped to the Iraq War. The other day, I pulled it out, batteries were kind of crummy, I got those squared away and went out, sure enough and navigated. I probably hadn’t pulled it out in at least 20 years. The point of the story is that evidently it still works.
What do you consider the most significant impact of GPS on society?
Well, the most significant impact is also probably the most perilous: kids today just take it for granted. They know where they are.
In May the President’s PNT Advisory Board heard a presentation about a National Guard project called NITRO. RNT Foundation President, Dana Goward, recently spoke with the project’s leader, Maj. Gen. Richard R. Neely, Adjutant General, Illinois National Guard, to find out more.
Mr. Goward: Thanks for speaking with us, General. Could you start by telling us what NITRO is and why it’s important?
Maj. Gen. Neely: Of course. NITRO is a project to ensure that the National Guard and our state’s first-responder partners can maintain communications and other critical functions even if we lose GPS timing signals.
NITRO is an acronym for Nationwide Integration of Timing Resiliency for Operations. ]You know how we in the military love our acronyms.
Telecoms and most of the rest of America’s critical infrastructure are dependent on timing from GPS. However, GPS signals are weak, highly vulnerable and under threat.
In addition to bad actors who can and do jam and spoof signals, accidental interference happens all the time. Operations at the Dallas and Denver airports were each interrupted by accident for more than a day last year, for example. A couple of years ago, a passenger airliner almost hit a mountain because of interference with GPS.
Q: It sounds like this is a safety of life issue.
A: It is. Right now, if we lost GPS signals and had to respond to a domestic attack, natural disaster, or other contingency, I am confident there would be additional unnecessary casualties. We are building NITRO so that we can save those lives and keep America safe.
Q: So how does NITRO work?
A: In addition to GPS, it gets multiple sources of space-based and terrestrial time from government and commercial providers. NITRO can use any trusted source. It is not provider- or vendor-specific.
Inputs are combined and compared, matched to the nation’s atomic clocks keeping Coordinated Universal Time, and users are sent the best accurate time multiple ways including over fiber, terrestrial broadcast, and resilient wireless networks.
Another great way in which I think it will be useful: NITRO gives us a common operating picture that can help detect and terminate GPS disruptions and anomalies around the country.
Q: Is the National Guard the only user?
A: Absolutely not! This is a state/federal partnership. The states’ Adjutant Generals are working with their Homeland Security Advisors to make it available to state, local, and tribal first responders. In some instances, also to critical infrastructure.
Even though we are in the early stages of implementation, NITRO is being used by seven states and 256 organizations and it is protecting more than 33 million people, including citizens here in Illinois.
Q: Is NITRO a tasking from the President or Congress? Who told you to do this?
A: NITRO helps execute long standing presidential policy and orders, as well as the recently released National Cybersecurity Implementation Plan. It also meets congressional mandates for backups and alternatives to GPS timing.
However, we created NITRO because we identified a serious threat to the National Guard’s mission execution. It closes 11 operational gaps for us, all without changes to end-user equipment.
Q: With what groups are the NITRO team working?
A: All the states are involved through their adjutant generals, homeland security advisors, and emergency managers. The NITRO board I chair is made up of the adjutant generals from six states.
We are also coordinating across the federal government, especially with the Departments of Homeland Security, Transportation, Commerce, and Energy.
As part of this we are partnering with the Department of Transportation to establish a NITRO engineering and operational site at Joint Base Cape Cod. This will allow engineers from different organizations to see more easily what we are doing and contribute their expertise.
Q: NITRO is going to provide timing signals in places and at times when GPS is not available. Won’t the National Guard also need navigation information?
A: Positioning and navigation are very important, but not quite as critical as timing. So, we are addressing that problem first. And since wireless location and navigation are often based on timing signals, NITRO will provide a good foundation for services and systems that can augment GPS-based navigation.
Q: So, how is the project going?
A: From a technical and operational standpoint, it’s going great. We have very high satisfaction ratings from NITRO users, and states are eager to be connected as soon as possible.
The technologies used are all mature, reasonably low cost, and most components are commercially available. So, engineering-wise it is low risk.
And our team is doing a great job helping folks move from full dependency on GPS to resilient positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) operations.
Q: Do you have any concerns going forward to full deployment?
A: The only thing I worry about is continued funding. Over the next five years we need something less than the cost of one GPS satellite. You would think that would be easy to find for an important effort like this, but it is a state/federal partnership, not a Department of Defense project. So, it falls into a kind of bureaucratic and budgetary no man’s land.
Q: What’s the solution for funding?
A: That’s not our call. The folks at the White House are exploring several alternatives, and I know several members of Congress are also concerned. We see a possibility of this fitting nicely with the recent infrastructure funding bill.
Q: It sounds like NITRO is something America really needs. Let’s hope they find a solution to the funding challenge, and quickly, to keep you on track. Thank you very much for your time!
Ever since it came on-line in February 2022, the website GPSJam.org has shown what appears to be regular interference with GPS signals in Texas near San Antonio and Del Rio, and locations north and south of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Only on normal workdays, however. Not on weekends or holidays. Furthermore, whatever was happening also took time off between the Christmas and New Year holidays GPSJam.org also shows similar, though less regular, activity in New Mexico. Experts say this is easily explained as White Sands Missile Range is often the site of electronic warfare training and tests. These are always announced in advance in FAA Notices to Air Missions (NOTAMs) when any interference with GPS reception is anticipated.
The regular patterns observed in Texas and Oklahoma and the lack of NOTAMs led some experts to speculate the source could be inadvertent interference from a commercial or government activity. Said one former official, “It’s just the kind of pattern you see from large organizations. They are off every weekend, federal holidays, and around Christmas.”
Aerobatic-capable Military Training aircraft reporting low NIC values (Image: Stanford University)
GPSJam.org is the brainchild of aviation analyst John Wiseman. The site uses crowdsourced ADS-B reports gathered by the ADS-B Exchange and displays it on a world map. Areas in yellow indicate that between two and ten percent of ADS-B reports for the day had low navigation accuracy. Areas in red had ten percent or more.
Information from the site has proved useful in identifying patterns of regular GPS jamming and spoofing in Russia and other conflict areas around the globe.
The workday patterns in Texas and Oklahoma have appeared on GPSJam.org displays since the site went live in February 2022.
GPS Interference and Aviation
Minor interference with GPS signals is fairly common. GPS jamming devices, while illegal to use, are inexpensive and easy to obtain from vendors on the internet.
Truck drivers wanting to defeat their company’s fleet tracking system, people concerned about being tracked by the government or others, even ministers trying to keep parishioners from texting during sermons – all have been known to use such devices.
Most GPS interference is unintentional. A two-year European Union study found hundreds of thousands of potentially harmful signals, but judged only about ten percent to be intentional. The rest were the inadvertent byproduct of poorly tuned electrical and electronic equipment.
ADS-B tracks of training aircraft performing aerobatics. Red indicates low NIC value reported. (Image: Stanford University)
While most GPS interference is unintentional and localized, spurious signals powerful enough to noticeably impact airborne operations are not unknown.
In two separate incidents last year strong interference near the Denver and Dallas airports impacted air traffic, each for more than a day. The Denver incident lasted for 33 hours before authorities found the source and shut it down. Air traffic was disrupted at Dallas for 44 hours according to government sources, though researchers found the actual interference only lasted for 24 hours. The source of the disruption was never identified.
In 2019 a passenger aircraft was almost lost due to GPS interference while on approach to Sun Valley, Idaho’s Friedman Memorial Airport. As the aircraft flew a GPS-based approach in smoke and haze, the interfering signal was just strong enough to lure it off course and toward a mountain. Fortunately, a sharp-eyed radar controller hundreds of miles away spotted the problem and intervened in time. The source of the interference was never identified.
As a result of the Sun Valley incident and input from numerous aviation groups, the International Civil Aviation Organization told its members there was an “urgent need to address harmful interferences” to satnav signals.
Texas and Oklahoma Mystery Solved
A researcher at Stanford University finally solved the puzzle of the strange recurring sequence of reports from Texas and Oklahoma.
While investigating last October’s GPS interference event near the Dallas airport, PhD candidate Zixi Liu noticed aircraft outside the main area of effect also reporting low Navigation Integrity Category (NIC) values. This began before and continued after complaints from commercial airlines about GPS not being available at Dallas-Fort Worth. These aircraft were in the same general area of Texas, but far enough away that there were large areas between them and Dallas that did not contain any reports with low NIC values.
Low navigation accuracy reports displayed at GPSJam.org. in New Mexico reports were due to GPS interference from military testing. In Texas and Oklahoma, military aerobatics training likely caused reports of low navigation accuracy. (Image: GPSJam.org)
At the same time MS Liu was also investigating anomalous ADS-B reports near San Antonio and Del Rio, Texas. She discovered in all three cases the reports of low NIC values were coming from military training aircraft regularly used for aerobatics. Other aircraft nearby reported good NIC values and showed no evidence interference.
In a recent presentation to the Institute of Navigation, she postulated that Interference with GPS signals was not the cause of the low navigation integrity reports. Rather, the rapid maneuvers and unusual aircraft attitudes of aerobatics caused the airplanes’ navigation receivers to intermittently lose lock on signals from GPS satellites. This caused their ADS-B equipment to report low navigation integrity.
Having solved that mystery, Ms. Liu continues to work on her original question – identifying the source of October’s 24-hour GPS disruption near the Dallas-Fort Worth airport.
Mr. Dana A. Goward is the President of the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation and a former US Coast Guard helicopter pilot.
Speaking at the National Press Club on Nov. 3, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair Jessica Rosenworcel announced a plan to reorganize the agency to include a Space Bureau and a standalone Office of International Affairs.
The rationale for these moves, as explained in a press release, is to “help ensure that the FCC’s resources are better aligned so that the agency can continue to fulfill its statutory obligations and keep pace with the rapidly changing realities of the satellite industry and global communications policy.”
While neither GPS nor Ligado were mentioned in the press release, some have taken establishment of a Space Bureau as a sign the FCC may be reconsidering its decision regarding Ligado Networks.
By creating a Space Bureau, the reasoning goes, the commission is acknowledging a need to better focus on space-based users. A report this summer from the National Academies of Science said that some GPS and Iridium users would be harmed if Ligado Networks is allowed to operate as planned.
Since the commission seems to be trying to prevent future Ligado-like controversies, it may also be ready to reconsider its Ligado decision. In February 2020 seven different petitions were filed by organizations and groups of organizations formally asking the FCC to reconsider. The commission has not yet responded to any of the petitions.
Few can disagree that aligning resources to more effective address constituent concerns is a good idea. At the same time reorganizations rarely, in and of themselves, prevent problems from recurring.
As one example, the FCC had been criticized for years for not including analyses of total costs and benefits to the nation of decisions it was considering. In January 2018, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai established the FCC’s Office of Economic Analysis to address those concerns.
Yet, despite Pai still being chair, the Office of Economic Analysis was not called upon to provide input to the commission’s deliberations on Ligado Network’s application. One of the pending petitions for reconsideration asserts that if the office had done a cost-benefit analysis, the commission’s decision would have been different. This is because the cost of even a small service degradation for potentially millions of GPS users would have very likely easily outweighed any benefit to the nation of granting Ligado Networks permission to operate.
Photo: Bill Oxford/iStock/Getty Images Plus/Getty Images
RNT Foundation President Dana A. Goward was in London last week for a PNT Leadership Seminar. Here is his report.
In March 2021 the United Kingdom’s government told parliament that a national positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) strategy was to be published imminently.
Yet, in addition to the normal duties of running the world’s sixth largest economy, the last 20 months have been busy for the UK government: evolving issues with Brexit, more COVID, three prime ministers, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, financial crises… Small wonder that publishing a strategy to address a “not-right-now” concern hasn’t come to the top of the pile.
Royal Institute of Navigation Leadership Seminar
Yet PNT resilience is an incredibly important issue requiring long-term solutions. As a “learned society,” the Royal Institute of Navigation (RIN) has a duty to bring together professional expertise and educate the public on such important topics.
On Nov. 1, the RIN convened a UK PNT Leadership Seminar with “the UK’s leaders in government, industry, academia and key user communities.” Its goals were to not only highlight the economic benefits of resilient PNT leadership for the UK, but also to “develop a view of approaches, priorities and next steps.”
Attendees expressed a wide variety of concerns. These ranged from difficulties growing and retaining talent in the field, to a lack of understanding among the public and government about the essentiality of PNT to virtually every aspect of modern life.
There was general agreement that establishing a coherent and resilient PNT program in Britain would have dual benefits.
First, it would help protect the nation’s economy and national security. Malicious and natural threats to space-based PNT mean that complementary systems are needed to mitigate outages. A government sponsored study in 2017 estimated losses exceeding £5B during a five-day outage. The study’s authors conceded at the event that longer outages would realize much larger per day losses as infrastructure and systems increasingly suffered.
Action to mitigate disruption of space-based PNT was especially important for the UK, according to the concept paper, because “the sectors where the UK has the most value at risk from a loss of GNSS-provided PNT are precisely the sectors that lack adequate resilient backup options.”
Image: London Economics report
Economic Benefits of Resilience
Secondly, British PNT resilience would also have great positive benefit to the economy, especially if the UK established itself as a leader in the field. A concept paper prepared for the seminar by London Economics found that the value chain for the UK would include research and development, provision of PNT infrastructure, PNT module manufacturing, system integration,and application development.
Among the UK stakeholders most likely to benefit, according to the paper, were companies and institutions that were part of the value chain, along with user communities, government and the public overall.
Attendees and the London Economics concept paper agreed that consistent and focused government leadership was essential. Government must create the conditions and confidence to stimulate the whole ecosystem to deliver resilience and the associated economic benefits. In fact, the paper envisioned the government as an “anchor customer” for resilient PNT providers and device manufacturers. This idea echoed that expressed by representatives of PNT providers in the United States earlier this year. The need for government to protect itself with resilient PNT (thus becoming an anchor customer) was a primary theme during a PNT roundtable held by the U.S. Department of Transportation in August.
Getting Government’s Attention
Finding a way to communicate the importance of PNT and UK government leadership in a way that would generate action was another theme from seminar attendees. One panel member despaired the problem was “Little Susie hasn’t died yet.” It is hard to get government’s attention without a disaster of some sort. Another attendee suggested creating a video to increase public awareness thereby causing government to take notice and act.
Finding a high-profile champion was also discussed. An attendee told a story about a member of the royal family’s interest in quantum technologies, how that led to meetings with government, and establishment of the UK’s £1B quantum tech program. While several indicated this isn’t really a path RIN could use, a combination of personal connections or celebrity with the ability to “tell the story” can be very helpful.
Parliament also Concerned
Just three days after the RIN event, the UK government’s leadership of resilient PNT efforts was also formally criticized by Parliament.
It described PNT services as “key enablers of Critical National Infrastructure (CNI) sectors that underpin our national security and defence interests as well as a wide range of other economic activities…”
After reviewing testimony received by the committee the report made several important findings.
Regarding GPS and Galileo:
“The reliance on foreign systems is concerning due to the potential for the UK to be blocked from using them in the future. Reliance on space-based systems is also not advisable as these can be disrupted through jamming attacks or adverse space weather. The loss of PNT services would be detrimental to the UK, with power distribution, financial transactions, and transport systems all seriously affected, and the UK’s national security put at severe risk.”
Commenting on the UK government’s efforts with OneWeb:
“We are concerned that the Government seems to be progressing towards plans to use OneWeb’s low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellation to provide PNT services in the future, despite suggestions from experts that there are many technical issues…”
And the Science and Technology Committee is not alone in Parliament being concerned with the nation’s lack of progress on PNT. In its October 2022 report “Defence Space: through adversity to the stars” the House of Commons Defence Committee said:
“Given the vital need for a resilient PNT network both for defence and for other aspects of critical national infrastructure we are deeply concerned by the complacent attitude towards PNT within government, and by the seemingly low priority which the MOD [Ministry of Defense] attaches to this work. Government must publish the conclusions of the SBPP and should set out a clear timetable for producing and taking forward the UK’s PNT strategy in its response to this report.”
‘Move PNT in Government above the Department Level’
Expressing the utmost frustration, last week’s report from the Science and Technology Committee recommended reassigning responsibility for PNT to a higher level of government than where it is positioned now.
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) is the ministry currently responsible for publishing and implementing the long-delayed PNT Strategy.
The committee said that this long delay is evidence the ministry is “…refusing to commit to the critical action that needs to be taken.”
It also said:
“…we believe the responsibility for PNT should lie outside of any one department. The Government should establish the National Security Adviser (NSA) as having overall responsibility for the UK’s access to secure PNT capabilities. The NSA should ensure that the importance of developing secure PNT systems is understood throughout Government and take responsibility for developing a programme and budget for the work that needs to be carried out.”
UK Cross-Government PNT Office
For now, there is no evidence the UK government will adopt Parliament’s recommendation to move responsibility for PNT to the National Security Adviser.
However, BEIS has created a cross-government PNT effort to address the nation’s needs. Attendees at the RIN seminar reported that the team is staffed with representatives from several departments, including the MOD.
Seminar attendees said that PNT is getting to be MOD’s highest space-based priority. While not in a position to lead, Defence was strongly supporting cross-government efforts.
The world watched in awe and a bit of terror as the 23-inch polished metal sphere arced across the sky. Its elliptical, 65-degree declination low-Earth orbit covered virtually the entire planet. Its beep, beep, beeping could be easily heard by professional and armature radio operators alike.
The Soviet Union had just put the world’s first artificial satellite, Sputnik I, in space. It was Friday, the 4th of October, 1957.
The Soviets had gained the high ground, quite literally. The Space Race had begun. As had the West’s greatly increased focus on education in science and engineering. School children in the United States would never lack for homework again.
On Monday, the 7th of October, scientists William Guier and George Weiffenbach arrived to work at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. To their surprise, they found no one had been listening in on Sputnik’s signal over the weekend. So, they decided to do just that. Just for good measure, they also recorded it.
Thus began a series of events that led directly to every satellite navigation system that has come since.
Guier and Weiffenbach’s story was documented in the Johns Hopkins Technical Digest in 1997. It is a fascinating tale of discovery. I highly recommend it.
And it may be a good reason for October 7 to become “World SatNav Day.”
Something big happened to GPS service in the Denver area on Jan. 21.
On that day, Air Traffic Control issued a notice advising pilots of problems with GPS reception spanning about 8,000 square miles in the Denver area.
The advisory, posted at 10:33 p.m. Denver time, said GPS was unreliable within a 50-nautical-mile radius of the Denver International Airport. Interference was likely to be experienced by aircraft on the ground and as high as 40,000 feet above sea level.
The advisory also said the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) and Ground-Based Augmentation System (GBAS), both designed to make navigation with GPS more precise, as well as the ADS-B collision avoidance and traffic management system, would be unreliable.
Pilots reported other systems affected such as transponders that help radar controllers keep track of aircraft, traffic alert and collision avoidance (TCAS) equipment, autopilots, electronic flight bags and terrain warning systems.
Pilots trying to land at Denver International and the much small Centennial Airport 20 miles to the south reported a variety of problems.
I flew in there (Centennial Airport) last night and I’m about to fly out. One second everything was fine, and then next second we completely lost GPS for the rest of the flight, probably coming through ~14,000 [feet] on the arrival from the northwest.
In addition to verbal reports to air traffic controllers, formal reports were filed with NASA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) by pilots flying into Denver International. (Note that ASRS only lists the month reports were submitted, not the day, to preserve anonymity.) Nineteen ASRS reports about GPS in Denver during January match well with comments on Reddit and an Airliners.net forum for the 21st and 22nd of the month.
The ASRS reports tended to focus on problems during approaches to the airport and landings. The most minor included distracting cockpit alerts and warnings.
Cleared ECAM (Electronic Centralized Aircraft Monitor) and emergency cancelled the repetitive nuisance messages. Additionally, received a GPS Lost message on FMC [Flight Management Computer].
More concerning were incidents that could more directly impact safety of flight.
One aircraft’s collision avoidance system, which normally reports issues as they develop, abruptly directed action to avoid another aircraft.
…we received a “LEVEL OFF” TCAS RA with no prior notification. The offending target was to our 2-3 o’clock and climbing…
Two aircraft reported confusing navigation displays on final approach to the airport. One pilot flying in limited visibility (instrument conditions) was sufficiently concerned that they aborted a landing attempt at the last minute.
We were about 1000 AGL [1,000 ft above ground level] – not sure about the exact altitude – and our RA [anti-collision warning] turned into an amber color… We were about 300 – 200 AGL and our autopilot failed… It was very unexpected… I called the go-around.
So, what happened to GPS?
At first, Air Traffic Control told pilots 5G telecommunications systems were causing the interference. That stopped at some point, though, according to an online comment:
As a [air traffic] controller… they haven’t told us anything. I was at work when it all started yesterday and they told us to make broadcasts about 5G interference. Today, they said it wasn’t 5G and not to make those broadcasts, but they still haven’t said what the issue is. There’s obviously rumors and speculation, but at this point, nothing concrete.
The first mention of the incident in traditional media seems to have been in an August 2022 journal article by a group of researchers at Stanford University. It focused on using the aviation ADS-B system to geo-locate GPS interference. The U.S. Department of Transportation provided the exact location and signal strength of Denver’s interfering transmitter to assist the Stanford study.
Requests in August and early September to the departments of Transportation, Homeland Security and Defense for more information on the incident went unanswered.
Mike Roskind from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) provided some information and promised a formal report would be forthcoming. He said:
the incident lasted for 33.5 hours
impacts varied across infrastructures and applications; some users who were physically shielded from the interference source were able to maintain service
wireline and cellular providers had timing backup systems and were unaffected
a radio system with no backups suffered, as did a simulcast radio system that used rubidium backup clocks; the clocks drifted away from each other over the course of the outage and caused towers to isolate.
Responding to a question about the source of the interference, Roskind confirmed that 5G telecommunication was not the cause, but refused to say more.
He also declined to identify other systems, applications and infrastructure impacted by the disruption. He said that the department is very concerned about protecting the identity of affected users cooperating with the government analysis.
More information will be provided in a DHS report on the incident titled “GPS Interference Happens.” The report is in final review now, according to Roskind, and is expected to be released in October.
“Precautionary principle: The principle that the introduction of a new product or process whose ultimate effects are disputed or unknown should be resisted.” — Oxford Languages
Photo: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge spans almost 20 million acres. It is home to a vast array of wildlife from tiny pollinating flies to giant grizzly and polar bears.
It also has oil. Lots of oil.
Getting that oil out of the ground and to market would create jobs and benefit commerce. It would also harm the environment. Some wildlife would suffer.
Many argue the long-term harms of drilling outweigh the short-term benefits. The Biden administration agrees and has banned drilling to protect the refuge’s environment and wildlife.
The administration has taken a similarly conservative approach to preserving the spectrum environment for satellites.
Like the previous administration, it has urged the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to not allow Ligado Networks’ use of frequencies adjacent to spectrum assigned to GPS and Iridium Communications. The concern is that Ligado’s more powerful transmissions will harm some existing users.
A recent report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine validated that concern. As is the case with many complex environmental issues, the total number of impacted individuals, and the total negative impact to the nation, are unknown. They may be unknowable.
As an independent agency, the FCC gets recommendations from, but does not report to, the administration. To date it has not been swayed by formal appeals from the executive branch, nor by those from numerous industry and non-profit groups, to rescind its decision allowing Ligado to operate.
Like other agencies making environmental decisions, the commission should use the “precautionary principle” when thinking about new uses and users. It is a well-recognized and systematic method of linking science and public policy.
increasing public participation in decision making
shifting the burden of proof to the proponents of an activity
taking preventive action in the face of uncertainty
exploring a wide range of alternatives to possibly harmful actions.
The first three of these were part of the FCC’s process in its Ligado decision, though critics of the outcome might question how rigorously each was applied:
Hundreds of public comments were received before the order was issued.
Critics note that opposition to the FCC’s eventual course of action was expressed by stakeholders across a very a broad spectrum of society.
The applicant, Ligado, was required to bear the burden of proof.
However, as the National Academies report says, different assumptions in Ligado’s analysis led it to an entirely different conclusion from studies done by the Department of Transportation.
The FCC order allowing Ligado to operate includes “preventative actions.”
Yet many see these preventative measures as unworkable window dressing. In the staid and reserved phrasing of the National Academies report, they “may in some cases not be practicable within operationally relevant time and financial parameters.”
Regardless of the virtues or sins of its process to date, the FCC’s path forward must hinge on the final tenant of the precautionary principle: “Exploring a wide range of alternatives in the face of uncertainty.”
The most obvious, simplest, and straightforward of these alternatives is for the FCC to assign Ligado different frequencies, ones more distant from those used by space-based applications.
Admittedly, this path is only “simple and straightforward” in concept. It will require restarting the frequency allocation process nearly from the beginning, detailed analyses, complex negotiations, and difficult decisions.
Yet the current situation means certain harm to an unknown but significant number of GPS and Iridium users. Harm that could, in some instances, be severe. Even life-threatening.
It also means harm for Ligado. As things stand now, the company will always be under a cloud in the minds of federal officials and other GPS and Iridium users. Ligado will also undoubtedly be blamed for a variety of problems not of its doing from solar weather to criminal jamming. And a significant mishap related to company-caused interference could cause it extreme harm. Perhaps even bringing about Ligado’s demise.
The radio frequency spectrum is a limited and critical national resource. The FCC’s desire to use it to best advantage is necessary and appropriate. This, however, requires great care to safeguard the overall environment and existing users.
Resolving the “Ligado issue” will require creativity and a departure from the adversarial approach that has characterized the FCC process to date. Let’s hope that as the commission reconsiders the issue, it finds a way for everyone to come out ahead.
In early August, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released its third report in 15 months about GPS and other positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) issues within the Department of Defense (DOD). Each report raised raised concerns about the way in which PNT programs were being managed and led within the department.
Observations included that DOD continues to rely heavily on GPS despite known vulnerabilities. Also, that alternate PNT efforts are not well coordinated and receive little support.
“Opportunities” for DOD to improve its alternate PNT efforts, according to the report, include:
Improving coordination across the services
Clarifying authorities and responsibilities for prioritizing needs
Focusing on resiliency versus GPS as the cornerstone of department PNT efforts
Clarifying PNT requirements rather than just defaulting to GPS as “the need”
The report pointed out that M-code has been in development for 20+ years, and that GPS satellites have been capable of transmitting M-code signals since 2005. Also, while there are still program risks, the Next Generation Ground Control Segment, known as OCX, is forecast to be ready to support M-code use by 2023.
OCX has experienced severe cost overruns and is more than five years behind its original schedule. GAO issued a report on OCX delays in May 2019.
M-code won’t really be a capability in DOD, though, until user equipment is widely fielded. That will take several more years, according to GAO.
One of the remaining challenges to M-code implementation, GAO said, was that the department did not collect and validate all the data it needed for leadership planning and prioritization.
A summary on the first page of the report contains what could be seen as harsh criticism of how PNT efforts are led within DOD:
“DOD’s overall PNT portfolio is managed by the PNT Oversight Council, a statutorily established senior-level body. However, the Council has largely prioritized modernizing the existing GPS system over alternative PNT efforts during recent meetings and has no strategic objectives or metrics to measure progress on the alternative efforts.”
Image: DOD
Too Much Leadership?
Some believe the real problem with DOD PNT is not a lack of leadership, but rather too much.
“If everyone is in charge, no one is,” commented one retired senior military officer familiar with the issue.
“Congress has been concerned about DOD’s lack of attention to GPS and PNT alternatives for years,” the individual said. “In 2015 Congress mandated creation of the Oversight Council to help ensure PNT got the right amount of leadership attention.” This may have not had the desired effect, though.
“The council is comprised of three undersecretaries, the vice chairman [of the Joint Chiefs of Staff], four combatant commanders, the NSA [National Security Agency] director, DOD’s CIO [chief information officer], and host of other very senior folks. All of whom have way too many other duties. It’s no wonder the department has a hard time getting things done!”
The department’s CIO is the Defense Secretary’s Principal Staff Assistant for PNT. As such, the CIO is tasked with coordinating department-wide efforts. The task is made particularly difficult by the many and diverse players across the department, all of whom have their own authorities, interests and projects.
Proposed systems and capabilities are examined and developed by a variety of DOD organizations. These include laboratories belonging to the five services and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
Programs of Record, which usually lead to acquisition of large systems, are led and managed within the individual services.
A Better Way?
Aside from recommending improved coordination of PNT efforts across the department, GAO has never addressed the way DOD manages its PNT enterprise.
“That is not something we normally get into unless specifically tasked,” said one of the reports’ authors. “We assume departments know best how to lead and manage their efforts.”
Others are not so reticent. They believe the current management structure is incapable of managing the development, acquisition and fielding of the DOD PNT Enterprise with any urgency or efficiency.
“GAO’s focus on the Oversight Council is misplaced,” one retired official asserted. “The missing piece is not oversight, it’s day-to-day DOD-wide management.”
“They need a multi-service program of record for resilient PNT,” the official said. “This would be separate from the GPS program, which would keep its own projects going and feed into the resilient effort. The new resilient PNT program should be managed by a Joint Program Office, which could consolidate integration and acquisition of resilient PNT applications. The office would be the steward for the critical technologies that underpin the modular, open-system integration strategy, including the digital reference architecture, input and output standards, software fusion engines, and needed modeling and simulation tools to ensure NAVWAR compliance.”
Such a construct could provide needed focus and coordination to DOD efforts, address many long-standing congressional concerns, and, by coordinating efforts within DOD and with industry, accelerate progress.
Dana A. Goward is President of the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation. He serves on the President’s National Space-based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Advisory Board.
On July 14, the U.S. House passed its version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year 2023, which begins Oct. 1, 2022.
The report released with the legislation contains several provisions of interest for the GPS and positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) communities. Perhaps most intriguingly, it indicates the National Guard is considering a program to ensure it has one or more sources of time independent from GPS.
Here are some of the more interesting PNT-related mentions in the report.
GPS Disruption & RF-Based Alternatives
A provision entitled “Briefing on Disruption of Global Positioning System” reiterates concerns Congress has expressed repeatedly over the last two decades.
On the civil side, these concerns have resulted in prohibiting the U.S. Coast Guard from disposing of old Loran facilities until a backup for GPS is decided upon and requiring the Department of Transportation to establish a timing alternative to GPS.
Most of Congress’ attention has been focused on the Department of Defense (DOD), though. Over the years, it has tasked the department with a wide variety of briefings and actions including reporting on threats to GPS, how DOD will operate in GPS-denied environments, progress (or lack thereof) in OCX and M-code, and development of alternative PNT systems.
The 2021 NDAA took a more activist approach and required DOD to “generate resilient and survivable alternative positioning, navigation and timing signals.” It also directed the department to work with the National Security Council, the departments of Transportation, Homeland Security, and others “to enable civilian and commercial adoption of technologies and capabilities for resilient and survivable alternative positioning, navigation, and timing capabilities to complement” GPS. The act mandated that this all be completed within two years.
Photo: Andrea Izzotti/Shutterstock.com
The 2023 NDAA reinforces Congress’ long standing concerns about “increasing threats of disruption” to GPS, stating “it is critical to invest in technologies that provide resilient and assured positioning, navigation and timing capabilities…”
Language in that same provision, though, focuses just on alternate navigation capabilities as opposed to full PNT. The act requires a briefing before the end of this year about DOD’s plan across the Future Year Defense Program (FYDP) for “alternative navigation broadcast services.” The briefing is required to include information about “progress on radio frequency-based alternative navigation solutions,” what the department is doing now, and cost estimates for infrastructure and other expenses across the FYDP.
Army MAPS Program
The Army’s Mounted Assured PNT System (MAPS) is focused on ground vehicles. Information on the service’s website seems to indicate the upgrade in the first generation of MAPS is an anti-jam antenna. The overall program of record is more ambitious, according to the site, and includes M-code, other GNSS and inertial sensors.
“Path to ALTNAV” and “Open Standards Interfaces” are also listed as features in the MAPS final version. This is likely incorporation of DOD’s mandate for modular open system architecture to ensure the ability to easily integrate future navigation and timing systems and signals.
The Army is already producing and fielding the Gen 1 version of MAPS. In March 2022, the Aberdeen Proving Ground News announced that 1,000 units had been fielded.
In its report accompanying the NDAA, Congress expressed concern with the pace of the MAPS program. It notes the Army has procured 2,000 units — a small fraction of the 225,000 ground vehicles the service operates.
The text of the congressional report also seems to indicate the program is not much beyond the point described on its website two years ago. The website says a Program of Record technical solution was planned to have been finalized in September 2020.
The House version of the bill would require the Army to provide a briefing on:
technical performance of candidate systems to incorporate into MAPS
the cost of these systems and integration
plans to deploy MAPS to the Army’s fleet of vehicles
plans to upgrade the Gen I MAPS units already fielded.
Another indication of the delayed pace of the program is that this briefing is not due for more than a year, in December 2023.
Autonomy Software for PNT-Denied Environments
While much less specific, another interesting PNT-related provision is a requirement for DOD to “Report on autonomy software for Next Generation Air Dominance.”
It describes a developing Air Force strategy for using piloted and unpiloted aircraft alongside each other. The software “could enable the continued operational capability of systems in positioning, navigation and timing-denied environments.” The Navy and Marine Corps are developing a similar concept.
Photo: Brian Kinney/Shutterstock.com
Little public information is available concerning any of the Next Generation Air Dominance programs or supporting systems. Experts have speculated, though, that operation in PNT-denied environments would likely involve some of the aircraft remaining outside the denied area and providing PNT information to the others via one or more links.
National Guard and Nationwide Alternative Timing
At the end of a section entitled “Collaboration on positioning, navigation, and timing research,” the House report reveals that the National Guard is concerned about relying entirely on GPS for timing and seems to have begun to address that shortfall.
It requires a report no later than February 2023 on the Guard’s “Nationwide Integration of Time Resiliency for Operations (NITRO) effort.” The report should address, among other things, mission need, capability gaps, estimated costs and how the department is collaborating with other federal, state and local entities.
The budget item for NITRO cites malicious cyberattacks that can impact command and control (C2) systems. It says the Guard’s ability to support civil authorities and critical infrastructure is at risk if not mitigated with resilient time.
While attempts to reach the National Guard for comment have been unsuccessful, PNT expert Pat Diamond said the Guard’s concerns and efforts are well justified. “Precision timing is a seriously weak link for everyone in the United States, including critical infrastructure and organizations like the National Guard,” Diamond said. “If GPS timing was not available for some reason, land mobile radios, common operational pictures, the ability to navigate, plus command-and-control systems would suffer greatly, potentially being completely degraded. It’s outstanding that the Guard has realized this and seems to be moving out. All the power to them.”
A Must-Pass Bill
The House version of the 2023 NDAA has yet to be conferenced and reconciled with that of the Senate. While the Senate’s version of the NDAA has been filed, the accompanying report has not yet been released. Since the House provisions seem relatively non-controversial, they are almost certain to be included along with others from the Senate in the final bill and report.
The resulting legislation is almost certain to pass into law.
Congress often struggles to pass even routine legislation. For example, it has only funded the government on time in four of the last 40 years. The annual defense authorization is an exception. NDAA’s are considered “must-pass” bills. Congress has sent one to the president in each of the last 61 years.
Dana A. Goward is President of the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation. He is also a member of the President’s National Space-based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Advisory Board.
ITU is the United Nations agency that deals with information and communications technology. Its remit includes coordinating spectrum use and satellite orbits.
ITU’s Radio Communications Bureau sponsors the World Radiocommunication Conference every three to four years. The issue of interference with GNSS signals was reported at the 2019 conference.
Since that time, according to this month’s circular, the group “has been informed of a significant number of cases of harmful interference to the radionavigation-satellite service…”
Despite concerns expressed by maritime and other interests, the circular focuses entirely on aviation interference. It says the reports it has received have been about “receivers onboard aircrafts and causing degradation or total loss of the service for passenger, cargo and humanitarian flights…” These have included “misleading information provided by RNSS [radionavigation satellite service] receivers to pilots.” An often cited example of this is a well-publicized 2019 incident in Sun Valley, Idaho. In that case a passenger aircraft nearly hit a mountain.
Describing interference with GNSS as a global and recurrent problem, the circular cites data collected by a major aircraft manufacturer. The company found “10,843 radio-frequency interference events … globally in 2021. The majority of these events occurred in the Middle East region, but several events were also detected in the European, North American and Asian regions.”
This year’s uptick in GNSS interference in Scandinavia, the Baltics, and around Ukraine since Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine is not mentioned. This is likely due, in part, to timing. ITU’s Radio Regulations Board met in March 2022 and directed the circular be issued.
Many within the positioning, navigation, and timing community have long asserted that interference with GNSS signals, whether deliberate or accidental, constitutes a violation of ITU rules and regulations. This month’s circular affirms this and cites several applicable provisions.
These include prohibitions on harmful interference with any authorized radio frequency transmission, requirements for users to transmit only in bands for which they have authorization, and for all to generally safeguard aviation operations.
The circular highlights provision 15.1 of ITU’s Radio Regulations as particularly applicable. It states:
“All stations are forbidden to carry out unnecessary transmissions, or the transmission of superfluous signals, or the transmission of false or misleading signals, or the transmission of signals without identification…”
As is the case with almost all international agreements, enforcement of ITU rules is the responsibility of its member states.
While most expect the advisory to have little immediate impact on reducing global interference with GNSS signals, it does help reinforce the issue as one of international concern.
According to a retired government official, “Member states that fail to comply with international rules to which they have agreed lose credibility and standing in the community of nations. Even when they have little credibility or standing to begin with, the behavior adds to their marginalization and life is just a little more difficult for them. This can, in the long run, nudge them toward being more responsible players.”
We all need to be careful that the numbers we are throwing around to support our case aren’t really undermining it.
Dana Goward, President, Resilient PNT Foundation
Over the last several weeks, I have repeatedly heard government officials and others talking about the value of GPS to the U.S. economy.
In each case they cited a 2019 report sponsored by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. It determined that, if GPS services were to go away, the U.S. economy would lose one billion dollars a day.
A billion dollars is a lot of money.
Yet the U.S. annual gross domestic product is more than $22 trillion a year. That’s more than $60B a day. One billion dollars is less than 1.7%.
That just doesn’t seem right.
A member of the White House’s National Security Council said “GPS is still a single point of failure” for America. That sounds like a pretty big hit to the economy. Not to mention our national security.
GPS signals are critical for networks, transportation, communications, power grid operations, first responders…virtually every critical infrastructure. If they go away, the U.S. GDP will certainly suffer much more loss than 1.7%. The economy would likely go from growing to shrinking and continue that way for quite a while.
I don’t know exactly how much the U.S. will suffer if GPS suddenly goes away, but I am sure it will be a lot. Texas alone lost an estimated $195 billion with at least 57 dead as a result of its February 2021 week-long power crisis. Although not caused by a GPS outage, the number gives us real-world benchmarks for the impacts of a major tech infrastructure failure.
If GPS fails, there will certainly be more accidents while people across the nation get used to it not being available. First responders will have a much harder time getting places and using land mobile radios. All kinds of essential services will be disrupted. More people will die than would have been the case otherwise.
In December 2021, a member of the White House’s National Security Council said “GPS is still a single point of failure” for America. That sounds like a pretty big hit to the economy. Not to mention our national security.
The authors of the NIST-sponsored study were undoubtedly diligent. But they were faced with an impossible task – to quantify the unquantifiable. And like any analysis, they were limited in what they could do by the available time, money, and hard data. They were asked for a number. They delivered one that could be easily supported.
A billion dollars is a lot of money. It might be a fairly impressive sound bite for general audiences.
Government budget analysts and policy makers, though, are accustomed to dealing with dollars in the hundreds of billions and trillions. A billion a day, while not chump change, is not a major issue.
Protecting GPS and ensuring the nation has resilient positioning, navigation and timing services are major issues.
We all need to be careful that the numbers we are throwing around to support our case aren’t really undermining it.
Dana A. Goward is president of the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation.
