The White House is drafting an executive order that would simplify the approval for private launches by clarifying space rules and regulations for private American space companies. This order, which President Biden could sign into law early next year, aims to simplify licensing procedures in accordance with existing federal space laws to routinize space activities, including launching rockets and satellites deployed by private companies. Private space companies such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, are preparing to invest in several projects over the next decade, such as Blue Origin’s Orbital Reef project, which would build a commercial space station in low-Earth orbit (LEO).
Additionally, an online tool is being designed for the Department of Commerce to guide private companies through the licensing requirements from the relevant federal agencies. The order may also include granting certain federal agencies oversight of space activities that are not currently monitored, such as asteroid mining and space junk removal.
ADVA is enabling service providers to offer GPS/GNSS-backup-as-a-service (GBaaS) to answer the need for operators to safeguard services that rely on positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) information.
Along with spoofing and jamming of GNSS, in-network timing based on network time protocols (NTP) and precision time protocols (PTP) are also increasingly vulnerable to cyber threats.
As a response, ADVA is now empowering service providers to offer GBaaS and enable end users to address new guidelines and standards for redundant PNT architectures. GBaaS meets the latest recommendations for PNT homeland security, including U.S Executive Order 13905. Leveraging ADVA’s aPNT+ technology, GBaaS eliminates the risks and costs associated with GNSS dependence.
“Threats to hamper PNT capabilities are growing, and much of the world’s critical infrastructure is still without adequate protection from GNSS vulnerabilities,” said Gil Biran, general manager of Oscilloquartz, ADVA. “All of that can change when service providers are able to offer GBaaS.”
GBaas is based on ADVA’s aPNT+ platform, which leverages a suite of technologies, including multi-band GNSS receivers and management software based on artificial intelligence and machine-learning.
Service providers can offer ADVA’s aPNT+ protection as a subscription-based service as part of their service-level agreements.
ADVA’s GBaaS solution employs a combination of multi-layer detection, multi-source backup and fault-tolerant mitigation to render timing networks more secure. Embedded in all timing devices, ADVA’s Syncjack technology provides comprehensive and precise synchronization performance monitoring and analytics, enabling the Ensemble Sync Director network management suite to intelligently operate and prioritize multi-source timing feeds across the network.
Onboard multi-band GNSS receivers boost timing accuracy and also protect against attacks like jamming and spoofing. When GNSS is either unavailable or compromised, a dispersed network of autonomous cesium atomic clocks and network backup timing feeds is ready to deliver highly accurate network timing over long periods of GNSS unavailability.
The U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) seeks to extend Trump policies and repeal timing law counter to its own study and industry input
The Biden administration’s budget proposal delivered to Congress last week includes $17 million for the small Department of Transportation (DOT) office responsible for leading civil positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) efforts for the nation. This is a marked increase over the $2 million allocated in 2020 and estimated $5 million being spent this fiscal year.
At the same time, it seeks to repeal the National Timing Resilience and Security Act of 2018 that mandated DOT establish a terrestrial timing backup for GPS. This, despite the findings of a recently published RAND study completed for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and other input from a telecommunications industry group.
Proposed Spending
The administration’s budget proposes $17 million for the DOT Office of Research and Technology to be split among three areas of effort.
Monitoring and detection. The first is a $3.5 million “(GNSS) performance monitoring and interference detection” project. This is a one-time request that is expected to be followed by a request for $1 million in yearly funding to maintain and operate the capability.
While these may not seem like sufficient funds to many, DOT is tasked with working with other departments and agencies, and to leverage existing capabilities. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is specifically named as an important partner with DOT in this effort. NGA already has responsibility for issuing worldwide navigation warnings for U.S. interests. It also has access to a wide variety of information that could be used for the project.
Signal authentication. Another $3.5 million is proposed for Executive Order (EO) 13905 Implementation and GPS Signal Authentication. The EO was issued in February 2020. It seeks to leverage market forces and education to create additional sources of PNT and encourage users to access them. This approach has been criticized by many as unworkable without extensive regulation and mandates for users, while still not addressing the majority of American companies and users.
$1.5 million of this $3.5 million will go to further implement the EO through development of a “PNT threat space model” and otherwise support inter-department PNT profile and research and development efforts.
$2 million would be allocated for a one-time investment in GPS signal authentication to “result in the development and validation of requirements for data and signal authentication capability for civil GPS,” reads the proposal. DOT has regularly requested much greater sums to establish civil signal monitoring, leading many to believe the requirements are already well known. One industry observer suggested this could be “a study in lieu of action.”
GPS Backup. $10 million would be spent for “GPS Backup/Complementary PNT Technologies Research,” essentially follow-on studies to the DOT GPS Backup Technologies Demonstration. “These efforts will further develop PNT modeling, simulation, and testing tools, as well as standards and performance monitoring tools needed to evaluate integration of diverse positioning, navigation, and/or timing technologies into end-user applications. This work will also support development of cyber-secure receivers,” reads the proposal.
One congressional staff member expressed shock at seeing that provision. “The act was the epitome of thoughtful, bipartisan congressional effort,” the staff member said. “It was co-sponsored in the Senate by Markey and Cruz, for crying out loud. You can’t get more bipartisan than that. To have this dumped on us without any notice or consultation is amazing. It is not something I would expect from this White House. I am not sure how serious a proposal it is.”
Some observers on the hill and elsewhere have opined that, rather than the repeal proposal being a well-vetted administration policy, it is an effort by OMB staff held over from the previous administration to carry forward and preserve President Turmp’s Executive Order 13905 and other PNT policies. Rather than focusing on establishing a GPS backup capability, they instead urged PNT users to find and pay for alternatives on their own.
Harsh Tone, False Assertions
Compounding the surprise is the exceptionally harsh tone in the proposal, and assertions that many claim are outright false.
Among the problems with the language seen by observers is its assertion that NTRSA seeks to establish a single backup for GPS services.
“It’s unclear to me where such an assertion is supported in the record,” said Greg Winfree, former Assistant Secretary at DOT in the Obama administration. “NTRSA requires the department to incorporate findings from the GPS back-up demonstration program. That project found a variety of systems are needed to protect America,” he said. “NTRSA does require establishment of at least one system, which is incredibly important. Without at least one alternative in place, GPS is one of highest priority targets for our enemies. We have to get the bullseye off of GPS. NTRSA does that.”
This point on national security was reinforced by Scott Pace, head of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University (GWU). Pace was executive director for the Space Council in the Trump administration. At a recent GWU webinar on the topic, he commented that having an alternative to GPS will contribute to national security and improve global stability. It will “lower the pressure on us to escalate and respond” should GPS satellites be damaged, or services disrupted, he said.
China, Russia, and other nations have terrestrial PNT alternatives to GNSS already in operation. This imbalance creates strategic and tactical problems for the United States, according to many analysts.
The proposed budget also describes NTRSA’s goal of providing at least one backup as “inefficient, anti-competitive and potentially harmful to the existing market for back-up/complementary PNT services.”
“Exactly the opposite is true,” according to Diana Furchtgott-Roth, GWU economics professor. Until January of this year, she led civil PNT issues within the Trump administration as a Deputy Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology at DOT. “DOT’s Complementary PNT and GPS Backup Technologies Demonstration Report, published in January, specifically stated that a variety of technologies are needed to complement GPS. What is the most cost-efficient in an urban area is not necessarily the most cost-efficient in a rural or maritime area.”
“PNT is a utility used by every American. Having affordable complementary service available to people in rural and urban areas is the height of efficiency. It is unquestionably in the interests of national and economic security. In fact, access to at least one alternative should be free so to encourage adoption and best protect the nation,” she said.
“GPS is now a free service provided by the government, and the government is responsible for making sure that it is reliable. GPS outages would cause harm across a broad range of economic activities, including emergency services, general aviation, pipelines, and the electricity grid,” according to Furchtgott-Roth.
No-So-New and Contradictory Research
The proposal to repeal NTRSA cites “recent federal analyses” as part of its justification. One of these is likely a report done for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) by the RAND Corporation. Touted in a press release last month as “new research” and labeled “Published 2021,” the work was actually completed in 2019. DHS representatives have said the delay in publication was needed for review and approval.
Yet the report was the basis for a DHS report to Congress submitted in April 2020. This has caused some to opine that its publication was timed to reinforce OMB’s effort to repeal NTRSA. “You don’t submit reports to Congress based on un-reviewed, un-approved material,” said a retired DHS official. “The timing of its release is clearly deliberate.”
At the same time, it found that government investment in a national timing network, such as the one mandated by the NTRSA, is likely warranted. Saying that a complete backup for all GPS services in all parts of the country is not cost-beneficial, the study says there are some “…federal initiatives that do appear to be cost effective or close to cost effective.” These include “Timing-only backup through fiber/FirstNet, eLoran, or STL [Satelles].”
According to the retired DHS official, this directly contradicts OMB’s assertion that NTRSA should be repealed. “Either they didn’t read the whole thing, or they counted on most people not reading farther than the top-level recommendations,” he said. “And those top recommendations were clearly selected to match OMB’s desired outcome.”
Telecommunications Industry Cites Need for NTRSA Provisions
The May 2021 “Report to the President on Communications Resiliency” also runs counter to claims made in the budget proposal. In it, the president’s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (coordinated by DHS) cites the need for GPS alternatives in telecommunications and urges President Biden to fund them. It specifically mentions the need for a national timing architecture, and cites the provisions of NTRSA several times as a step in the right direction.
The industry group Alliance for Telecommunications Solutions also sent letters in May to congressional leaders urging funding for GPS alternatives.
Continuing the Discussion
Congress has become increasingly dissatisfied with executive branch actions on resilient PNT over the last decade.
The most recent evidence of this is an extensive and highly critical report of the Department of Defense’s approach to PNT resilience released May 10 by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Among its recommendations was to not rely on GPS as a primary PNT source but look to more resilient technologies.
While President Trump’s 2020 Executive Order did not make precisely the same recommendation to civil users, it did focus on “responsible use” of PNT and transitioning to using additional, non-GPS dependent sources.
The question still under discussion is how far the government should go to support such a transition.
Seasoned observers regularly comment that Congress has the “power of the purse” and every president’s budget is “dead on arrival” regardless of which party controls the White House.
It seems clear that resilient PNT will be a topic of lively debate between the Congress and the White House, as well as internally on the hill, for the foreseeable future.
Coalition gives voice to PNT companies seeking open-market approach to backing up GPS/GNSS for critical infrastructure
Several GNSS and positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) companies have joined forces to create a new lobbying group, the Open PNT Industry Alliance. Founding companies include InfiniDome, Iridium Communications, Jackson Labs Technologies, NAVSYS Corporation, NextNav, OPNT, Orolia, Qulsar, Satelles and Seven Solutions.
In the United States, the coalition believes the Executive Order on “Strengthening National Resilience Through Responsible Use of Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Services,” issued in February 2020 begins the process for a national alternative PNT policy.
The report was criticized by some lawmakers for inaccuracies and lack of depth, but several companies whose solutions were referenced in the report defended it, and have now joined in creating this new alliance.
The alliance expects to support similar initiatives in other countries.
The coalition is designed to fortify economic and national security by supporting government efforts to accelerate the implementation of backup PNT capabilities for critical infrastructure. Other companies sharing these views are invited to join the alliance.
The Open PNT Industry Alliance will be introduced in an Orolia PNT Coffee Talk webinar on Thursday, Dec. 17, at 10 a.m. EST.
A serious problem facing nations around the world is that GPS and other GNSS are susceptible to inadvertent disruptions and deliberate attacks. Such incidents have the potential to impair or incapacitate communications networks, transportation systems, energy production and distribution platforms, financial services operations and other types of critical infrastructure.
With the scope, complexity and severity of disruptions and attacks evolving continuously, the combination of wide-ranging PNT solutions and emerging technologies offers superior protection to current threats by providing a backup to GPS/GNSS and improving national resilience.
“Multiple forms of alternative PNT deliver the broadest possible range of operational and performance characteristics to meet the diverse needs of applications across all industry sectors, plus they can better adapt to future threats than a single technology with its inherent vulnerabilities,” said Michael O’Connor, CEO of Satelles. “The mission of the Open PNT Industry Alliance is to promote open-market concepts that preserve industry’s long-term ability to harness its inventive talent to protect GPS/GNSS with multiple solutions that are technologically advanced, commercially viable, and based on a sustainable long-term funding framework.”
The Open PNT Industry Alliance will share its expertise with governments to aid their efforts to set policies, define regulations, and enact laws that achieve their national resilience objectives while preserving competition in the open market. A principal purpose of the coalition is to stimulate and capitalize on the collective intellect of industry in a collaboration between the public sector and private sector.
“The ingenuity of the private sector is spurred by competition and public and private investment, and this will drive the emergence of multiple GPS/GNSS alternatives that are cost-effective and evolve according to threat profiles, technological innovations, and market dynamics,” said Jean-Yves Courtois, CEO of Orolia. “Similarly, unbridled innovation will address new and still evolving use cases not supported by GPS/GNSS.”
The coalition will work closely with governments as they consider plans for regulation of critical infrastructure sectors and funding for alternative PNT. Legislators and policymakers can best pursue national interest through a multi-technology approach to PNT resilience, the coalition stated in a press release. The coalition will advocate for the establishment of a robust and self-sustaining funding framework that allows for the development and adoption of multiple sources of PNT that meet the needs of various sectors and industries.
“We believe a multi-technology approach to PNT resilience not only meets a more diverse set of critical infrastructure needs but also ensures a more robust approach to security by providing multi-layer resilience,” said Ganesh Pattabiraman, CEO of NextNav. “Delivering alternative PNT capabilities on an equal footing with GPS will require government policies and funding that ensure these solutions are cost-effective for critical infrastructure providers and sustainable over the long term.”
Orolia will host a second industry discussion on the positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) Executive Order, a federal initiative to protect critical infrastructure from GPS/GNSS jamming and spoofing threats, and other PNT service disruptions.
Speakers include:
John Pottle, Director, Royal Institute of Navigation
Greg Gerten, Director of PNT Operations, Centauri Corp.
Tyler Hohman, Director of Products, Orolia Defense and Security
The first Orolia PNT Coffee Talk, which focused on jamming and spoofing, is available here.
The second session — which takes place July 16, 2 p.m. EST — will explore the importance of vulnerability testing to protect critical infrastructure with Resilient PNT technologies. The defense industry has addressed complex GNSS and PNT threats longer than any other sector, and experts will share their insights and best practices to help inform the protection strategy for critical infrastructure identified in the Executive Order.
Vulnerability testing with GNSS simulation is essential to protect critical infrastructure. However, there is no one-size-fits-all approach. This testing requires the ability to customize scenarios per application. It also needs to identify gaps across a variety of unique and geographically distributed systems.
Test results provide the basis to select the best PNT technologies to increase resilience, while ongoing regular testing ensures that critical systems can adapt and overcome evolving threats.
The Orolia PNT Coffee Talk is for those interested in learning more and discussing the latest developments in this national priority from industry and government perspectives.
Orolia PNT Coffee Talk
Vulnerability Testing for Critical Infrastructure: Lessons Learned from Defense
Jackson Labs Technologies (JTL) has launched the PNT-6220 Assured Reference — a product combining low-Earth-orbit (LEO) signals, GNSS, terrestrial, wireline and atomic clock services in one small solution, specifically designed for critical infrastructure applications.
The PNT-6220 reference seamlessly combines concurrent L1, L2, L3 and L5 GNSS reception with a custom JLT-designed LEO-based Satellite Time and Location (STL) timing receiver. It also includes terrestrial receivers and PTP/IEEE-1588 edge grandmaster (EGM) and PTP/IEEE-1588-slave capability.
The PNT-6220 provides assured PNT for critical infrastructure applications such as those described in the directives of Presidential Executive Order 13905.
It can serve as a timing reference for 5G equipment, an ePRTC-capable reference, or a high-performance disciplined reference that supports PTP/IEEE-1588, STL, RF distribution and multi-frequency GNSS capability.
The PNT-6220 will be able to select the most optimal UTC reference input automatically and auto-switchover among its numerous reference inputs if one or more of them are jammed or spoofed, as well as average several references for additional stability and accuracy.
If all external references are jammed, the unit can provide UTC timing from its internal holdover oscillator with options that have less than 100-ns drift over 24 hours. The unit is also capable of outputting a GPS RF distribution signal driven by the internal flywheel oscillator, which allows glue-less retrofitting of any GPS-based legacy user equipment to the state-of-the-art reference sources the PNT-6220 can receive by simply plugging into the legacy equipment GPS antenna input.
Available Options
Numerous options are available for the half-width 19-inch-wide rack-mount box.
With the rise in public unrest from COVID-19 and increasing numbers of remote operations, the susceptibility and vulnerability of a cyber attack has never been greater.
On a regular basis, we hear intelligence experts proselytize an eventual cyber doomsday where our critical infrastructure (CI) — communications systems, information technology (IT) capabilities and financial networks — are compromised or disabled. These kinds of attacks could devastate our national and economic security and even disrupt basic day-to-day activities like turning on lights or buying groceries with a debit card. Even worse, a significant cyber event could escalate to the point of military actions between nation-states.
In 2012, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned about a potential “Cyber Pearl Harbor.” These threats were echoed by then head of Cyber Command, Gen. Keith Alexander, with hope the public, private and CI sectors would take notice of the broad, detrimental impacts of cyber threats.
Geoff Hella, Centauri Corp.
In kind, the Obama administration took aggressive steps to protect CI networks, and the Trump White House followed suit by enacting measures to strengthen the resilience of other technologies integral to our CI.
The latest White House Executive Order specifically addresses our reliance on position, navigation and timing (PNT) services and directs agencies to work in close coordination with the private sector to identify, secure and continue to improve the resilience of these technologies.
PNT services, such as GPS, are an extension of our IT systems, but despite this, PNT has been a relatively invisible utility and is oftentimes unknowingly utilized by most CI owners and operators. In the coming years, our reliance on PNT will only increase, making now a critical time to foster close collaboration between public and private sectors and determine which systems, networks and assets are dependent on PNT services. Identifying these dependencies will allow us to verify appropriate resilient PNT services being used, determine downstream effects of the disruption and manipulation of PNT services, and manage the associated risks to dependent systems.
The new directive is fast paced — outlined in 90-, 180- and 360-day increments — and instructs agencies to utilize existing public-private sector cybersecurity and CI information sharing relationships, such as Sector Specific Agencies (SSA), to share threat data, educate stakeholders and promote a responsible use of PNT.
What’s the rush?
So, why is this happening right now? PNT systems are crucial to American life, and successfully securing them requires a coordinated response and sooner rather than later. In fact, malicious nation-states, such as Russia, are spreading their wings into new threat vectors to inflict damage and are shifting their attention to PNT.
Because of these risks, we must do more as a country to establish safeguards around these technologies. That being said, agencies and organizations cannot expect their current workforce to become PNT security experts overnight. Rather, business owners and operators would be better served bringing in third-party experts that have been building security into PNT even prior to this directive.
These private-sector partners can map out a systematic approach to prioritize PNT security in a three-step plan:
Find. Identify PNT systems and “profile” them — establish point A.
Fix. Find and correct vulnerabilities — many can be non-material/tactics, technique and procedures (TTP) solutions.
Fortify. Develop TTPs, timelines and guidance for users to upgrade CI where needed — the path to Point B.
When PNT services were first developed, the systems could be openly used by anyone and security was not built into the original PNT architecture — similar to when the internet was created. This has made it easy for adoption into almost everyday life and revolutionized the world. Likewise, it has also made it easy for bad actors to access and compromise it, forcing the country to scramble, backtrack and implement cybersecurity best practices.
The good news is that we aren’t completely starting from scratch. The Department of Defense has been working to secure its PNT systems and will be updating its processes and practices as part of the recent White House directive.
The security community can also look to best practices in assessing risk of vital systems and model PNT security measures on existing guidelines such as Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) and NIST Special Publication 800 Series.
Path Forward
Per the Executive Order, lead agencies such as the Department of Transportation and the Department of Commerce will work in concert with the private sector to define “PNT profiles” and share these attributes with stakeholders. The coalition of partners will then be able to account for where and how PNT is used by CI owners and operators and will promote the responsible use of PNT services moving forward.
Beyond defining PNT profiles, the EO allocates new research and development funding for Commerce to develop an alternative to GNSS, which provides real-time PNT data to planes, trains, ships and automobiles that transport vital goods and resources — all in an effort to reduce the level of acceptable risk.
The White House also requires the public and private sectors to develop vulnerability testing and incident response plans and, simultaneously, encourage the private sector to use and develop more robust PNT services in anticipation of new Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council (FARC) contract requirements.
While these changes may seem like a fast moving and overwhelming process, there are many cases where CI owners and operators will not be required to integrate material solutions, but rather procedural training and behavioral adjustments. The information sharing processes already exist to provide improved situational awareness, coordination among the public and private sectors, increased reporting, solidified baseline risk assessments and a broader understanding of how systems rely on PNT. The challenge is facilitating widespread adoption across all stakeholders, increasing collaboration and education among and across the CI groups.
For this effort to be successful, it will require a whole-community, multi-pronged approach to operating in a new “threat top-of-mind” paradigm that is grounded on cross-sector information sharing, training and education. Both public and private sectors should also outsource expertise and leverage existing models like the DoD PNT doctrine, NIST standards and incident response capabilities.
Gregory Gerten is director of PNT Operations at Centauri, supporting the PNT enterprise through innovative use of modeling and simulation, hardware-in-the-loop and field testing, and process automation. He earned his master’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Dayton, and has completed post-graduate courses in GPS from the Air Force Institute of Technology. He has more than 20 years of experience in system design, development and integration in the areas of communications, navigation, electronic warfare tactics and weapon systems.
Geoffrey Hella is a senior engineer for Centauri assigned to a Space Command contract through the Joint Navigation Warfare Center (JNWC). He has worked to achieve a Master of Aeronautical Science (MAS) from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in 1994. During his 40 years of experience, he has been a leader in product development and system design to successfully carry out a vast range of assignments in multiple engineering disciplines. His assignments include: aircrew member of the United States Air force (USAF); National Air Space (NAS) engineer for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA); Special Nuclear testing and safeguards engineer for the Department of Energy/Sandia National Laboratories; and Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) engineer for both public and private Industry, electric and gas utility companies. Hella currently holds a six-sigma certification and a general radio operator license from the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) and a remote pilot operator certificate from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
The PNT Coffee Talk event will be held online and is open to those interested in learning more and discussing this national priority from the industry and government perspectives.
The Executive Order, issued Feb. 12, is a federal initiative to protect critical infrastructure from GPS/GNSS jamming and spoofing threats, and other disruptions to critical PNT services. These threats can deny access to, or compromise, essential PNT data that critical infrastructure needs to operate.
This initiative, titled “Executive Order on Strengthening National Resilience through Responsible Use of Positioning, Navigation and Timing Services,” includes the following critical infrastructure: defense, homeland security, transportation, power grids, communications/mobile, precision agriculture, weather forecasting and emergency response.
Key actions include assessing jamming, spoofing and other PNT disruption risks across these critical infrastructure programs, developing customized PNT profiles to address risks, and deploying Resilient PNT technology to increase resilience.
Survey seeks feedback. Orolia asks those interested to share questions and comments and let the company know what you’d like to discuss during this PNT Coffee Talk event through an anonymous survey.
Government officials, advisors and congressional staff gathered at NASA’s Langley Research Center on March 13. They were there to discuss the Department of Transportation’s (DoT’s) GPS Backup Technology Demonstration program and view the offerings of six different companies.
A second event to view and discuss technologies offered by the other five companies in the program is scheduled (as of this writing) for Friday, March 20, at Joint Base Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
View from Washington, D.C.
The day began with remarks by Karen Van Dyke from the U.S. Department of Transportation, as well as remarks prepared by Colonel Joseph Frankino, deputy director of the National Coordination Office, a multi-agency staff that supports the National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) Executive Committee, whose members were unable to attend.
Van Dyke provided an overview of the program and pointed out the increasing importance of resilient PNT. As just one example, improvements in autonomy and self-driving cars are entirely dependent upon consumers having confidence in the entire system, much of which is underpinned by PNT.
Col. Frankino’s remarks reflected the Defense Department’s commitment to and support of DoT’s resilient PNT efforts. He pointed out that the nation’s military depends upon the defense industrial base, which depends upon uninterrupted PNT.
Volpe Transportation Systems Center
The technology demonstration effort is being coordinated by Andrew Hansen from DoT’s Volpe Center. Dr. Hansen pointed out that the ongoing effort, the analysis and assessment of which is expected to be concluded in May, is a series of demonstrations vice tests. This means that the companies involved were showing what their systems could do, vice being measured against set criteria.
He also mentioned that the maturity of all the systems involved seems to have improved significantly over the last year. All are at Technical Readiness Level 6 or better. Also, that things so far had gone very smoothly with no need for any “re-dos.”
GPS and a cesium clock were being used as reference standards for the demos. Two of the systems, NextNav and Skyhook, were also demonstrated on a drone at Langley’s 150 acre open air site.
Report and Transparency
Data from the demos is not proprietary and belongs to the government which intends to make “as much of it available as possible.” DoT representatives mentioned several times their desire for maximum transparency.
Admiral (ret.) Thad Allen (left), chair of the National PNT Advisory Board, was among the attendees learning about DoT’s GPS Backup Technology Demonstration project at NASA’s Langley Research Center. (Photo: RNT Foundation)
Attendee Observations
After a day of viewing and discussing the six different technologies with their vendors, the group reconvened to offer feedback. All agreed the day was very worthwhile and complemented DoT and NASA on the event.
Kicking off the discussion, the DoT hosts remarked that the department is fully committed to GPS and its modernization. That said, there is broad recognition of the importance of other PNT systems. This is evidenced by the recent White House Executive Order on PNT.
Also, that there is no single solution that will fill the PNT needs of everyone. In fact, GPS does not serve the PNT needs of everyone. The need across sectors for a wide variety of sources to “backup” GPS is why the demonstration project includes some systems that only provide time, or only positioning.
Feedback from attendees included:
The reason for this project is that we have a 20th-century GPS and 21st-century threats. New technologies need to be examined for vulnerabilities. Security must be “baked in” from the beginning. Moderators commented that the DHS Conformance Framework was one of the tools that would help with this.
Rural and other underserved areas (such as wilderness, remote transportation networks, maritime) need PNT and should be a part of the government calculus.
Many systems depend upon infrastructure provided by others versus being self-sufficient.
In the view of many in Congress, it is good to see the demos going well. Overall, though, things are about two years late. Members and staff are very interested in when there will be an RFP and schedule for implementing the timing system mandated by the National Timing Resilience and Security Act of 2018.
Monty Johnson of the company OPNT demonstrates precise time transfer through 100 kilometers of spooled fiber-optic cable. (Photo: RNT Foundation)
Systems Demonstrated at NASA Langley
During the course of the day, attendees had the opportunity to interact with representatives from the following companies and their systems.
On Feb. 12, the White House released an “Executive Order on Strengthening National Resilience through Responsible Use of Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Services.”
It is gratifying to see White House attention to this issue. The increase in public awareness it brings will benefit individual users and the nation as a whole.
The order also hints at market driven solutions that could quickly improve America’s PNT resilience.
Needless delays
Unfortunately, the order fails to direct immediate action on this critical national and economic security issue. Instead it needlessly pushes most action and responsibility off for a year or more to do “more study.”
This is hard to understand as most of the “more study” has already been completed. For example, the order tells the Department of Commerce to take up to a year to examine PNT use in various sectors, and identify vulnerabilities and user needs. The Department of Homeland Security has already completed a National Risk Assessment and, according to congressional staff, has recently completed a report on user requirements mandated in 2017’s National Defense Authorization Act.
The Office of Science and Technology Policy is given a year to develop a plan to test robust and resilient non-GNSS PNT services (but is not required to actually do any testing). Congress mandated such a test program in 2017 and funded it with $10 million in 2018. After much delay, the Department of Transportation will complete the testing in May of this year.
The order gives the Department of Commerce six months to make available a time source to support critical infrastructure. For more than 60 years, the nation’s master clock has been available to users at the department’s NIST Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado.
Note the challenge has not been the clock, but that the nation has no way — other than vulnerable GPS signals — to distribute time at the needed level of accuracy to millions of critical infrastructure nodes. Government studies in 2007 and 2014 determined that the best way to do this was with a ground-based system. The Department of Transportation’s ongoing testing program is examining this issue again.
Market-driven solutions
Aside from increasing public awareness, the best thing the Executive Order does is to point a way forward for market-driven resilient PNT solutions.
The order calls for federal contracts to (in 21 months, if everyone does their jobs on time) require that vendors use existing and new resilient PNT sources.
If this eventually happens, the government could leverage its enormous influence in the market and stimulate creation of one or more commercial distribution systems for resilient, non-GNSS PNT. This is a great concept, and very much in keeping with America’s tradition of letting market forces solve some of its biggest problems.
But this solution will not spring into life on its own.
No commercial entity will invest tens of millions of dollars, or more, in a PNT system without assurance in advance of an income stream. Especially since federal contracting officers can and will waive the requirement if offerors cannot reasonably meet it.
If stimulating a market solution is the administration’s intent, it must stay actively involved and encourage the process for some time to come.
This includes complying with the 2018 law that requires establishment of at least one wireless, terrestrial, difficult-to-disrupt source to back up the timing signals provided by GPS.
Fortunately, this can be done by leveraging the free market at minimal cost and with little administrative effort.
By contracting to subscribe to a commercial service that will provide resilient PNT signals, the government need only invest a relatively small yearly sum using a fairly simple contract vehicle. Such a contracting technique has been used before with great success.
In 2007 the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) did this as a way to establish its ADS-B aviation tracking and safety network. Once the subscription contract was let, the commercial provider was able to get financing and quickly build out the system.
Today, the FAA gets the information it needs, doesn’t have the headache of owning and maintaining a large network, and even shares in the revenue the system owner earns from selling data to other companies.
Additional leadership needed
It is important to remember that, regardless of the issue, presidential pronouncements are not enough.
In 2004, President G.W. Bush directed a number of actions to protect the nation’s critical PNT, including establishment of a GPS backup capability. While 16 years later his directive is still official executive branch policy, that mandate and many others from his order are still unexecuted.
Real improvements to PNT resilience and our nation’s security depend not on one-time pronouncements, but continued leadership focus and engagement.
This is always a challenge for initiatives driven by the White House. It will be doubly so in this case as there is no clear department leader for civil PNT issues the administration can rely on while it attends to the next issue of the day.
On Feb. 12, President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order establishing a comprehensive national policy to promote the responsible use of positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) services by the federal government.
The order directs federal agencies to take steps to reduce disruption of critical infrastructure that relies on PNT, including GPS. It also directs critical infrastructure owners and operators to strengthen their systems’ resilience.
Markets affected include including the electrical power grid, communications infrastructure and mobile devices, all modes of transportation, precision agriculture, weather forecasting and emergency response.
The federal government will engage both the public and private sectors to identify and promote responsible use of PNT services, with the goal of ensuring that “critical infrastructure can withstand disruption or manipulation of PNT services.”
“Because of the widespread adoption of PNT services, the disruption or manipulation of these services has the potential to adversely affect the national and economic security of the United States,” the order states. “To strengthen national resilience, the Federal Government must foster the responsible use of PNT services by critical infrastructure owners and operators,” the order reads.
PNT Profiles
The Commerce Department is tasked with developing PNT profiles, due a year from today, for PNT-dependent systems, networks and assets. The profiles will be developed through consultation with the private sector.
The profiles will also:
identify appropriate PNT services;
detect the disruption and manipulation of PNT services; and
manage the associated risks to the systems, networks and assets dependent on PNT services.
The profiles will be reviewed and updated every two years.
Reaction to the Order
Reacting to the Executive Order on PNT, J. David Grossman, executive director of the GPS Innovation Alliance (GPSIA), stated:
“The GPS Innovation Alliance (GPSIA) welcomes today’s Executive Order recognizing the critical economic and societal benefits of GPS and other Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS). Resiliency is among the core attributes that have made GPS the gold standard for delivering positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) functions to our military as well as a wide range of other sectors, including transportation, agriculture, electricity, and finance. Today’s Executive Order represents a crucial next step in ongoing efforts to maintain the security, robustness, and redundancy of PNT capabilities, including GPS, that millions of Americans rely on every day. GPSIA looks forward to working with key government stakeholders to support the implementation of this effort.”
The Department of Transportation stated,
“Our challenge is to enable increased resilience across our transportation systems and ensure the traveling public and freight transporters experience an increased level of safety and efficiency without the possibility of interference caused by loss or manipulation of PNT.
Department of Homeland Security Acting Secretary Chad F. Wolf said,
“From mobile phone applications to automobile navigation, our digital, interconnected society is dependent every day on PNT services.That is why it’s critically important that PNT services remain properly functioning as a major component of the nation’s critical infrastructure. By adopting responsible use of PNT services, the federal government and owners and operators of critical infrastructure can contribute meaningfully to national resilience and ensure the continuous, uninterrupted delivery of services to the nation.”
