On Feb. 19, the Finnish government submitted a legislative proposal to parliament to criminalize possession and import of radio-frequency jammers and spoofers, including those blocking GNSS signals
According to Ministry of Transportation and Communications, the amendments would be made to the Act on Electronic Communications Services. The government proposes to amend the provisions on equipment that jam or spoof radio communications.
Unauthorized use of jammers is already banned. The government proposes to criminalize unauthorized possession of jammers, enabling confiscation and improving the authorities’ ability to intervene in the unauthorized possession and import of such devices. The proposal would introduce a distinct definition for jammers, separate from radio equipment, allowing for stricter regulation.
The amendment would set clearer conditions for the use and possession of jammers for the authorities and other authorized parties. The possession and use of jammers for research and product development would be permitted under a license if certain conditions are met.
The proposal would also introduce exceptions for NATO and its member states regarding the right of the Finnish Transport and Communications Agency (Traficom) to check radio equipment or jammers and confiscate them for inspection.
Parliament will first hold a debate on the government proposal in a plenary session. The proposal will then proceed to a committee reading. Following the committee report, the debate will continue in a plenary session.
The Act is scheduled to enter into force on July 1.
Advanced Navigation is moving forward with plans to establish international positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) Centers of Excellence, with the UK location selection process currently underway.
The company is evaluating potential sites based on access to technical talent, logistics capabilities and proximity to major international airports. The final UK center location will be announced in late 2025, with additional global centers confirmed in early 2026.
Over the past year, Advanced Navigation has doubled its workforce and significantly expanded manufacturing capacity to address surging defense sector demand. The international COE network represents the next phase of the company’s growth strategy, positioning it to double its team again within 12 months.
“In an era of increasing complexity and contested environments, the ability to navigate with absolute certainty is becoming the world’s most critical strategic asset,” the company stated.
Building Supply Chain Resilience
To complement its Australian operations and establish robust onshore supply chains meeting local standards and security requirements, Advanced Navigation plans to partner with regional specialists in critical PNT sensing technologies, including:
Inertial sensing (optical gyroscopes and MEMS)
Vision-based sensing
Lidar and radar sensing
Acoustic Doppler velocity log sensing
The company emphasizes that navigation’s future depends on integrating diverse, adaptable sensor suites rather than relying on single technologies. Through its multi-sensor approach centered on inertial systems, the company aims to deliver resilience even in severe GPS-contested environments.
The expansion will accelerate innovation cycles, strengthen quality assurance and create opportunities for partners and research institutions across America and Europe to collaborate on breakthrough technologies.
Strengthening NATO Capabilities
The strategic expansion directly addresses NATO forces’ evolving operational needs. By establishing presence within U.S. and European industrial landscapes, Advanced Navigation aims to bolster critical infrastructure resilience while creating collaboration opportunities and jobs.
Beyond scaling production, the centers will focus on enabling seamless interoperability across NATO’s land, sea and air platforms, reducing integration time and costs for member nations. The COE network positions the company to power the next generation of autonomous systems and alternative PNT solutions worldwide.
Advanced Navigation said the Boreas D90 FOG INS represents the type of technology that will be developed and manufactured at these new facilities.
A new prototype sensor developed by the NATO Communications and Information Agency has completed a significant round of testing, marking a step forward in NATO’s electromagnetic warfare capabilities. The sensor, GANDALF 4, underwent a series of tests at an advanced anechoic chamber operated by the NATO Support and Procurement Agency. This facility serves as a controlled environment for precise calibration and detailed performance assessment of the sensor’s antenna array, which is critical for ensuring the system’s accuracy and reliability.
GANDALF 4 was developed by specialists at the agency’s Joint Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Centre. The system is designed to detect, classify and locate deliberate attempts to interfere with or manipulate GNSS signals. GNSS jamming and spoofing are becoming more frequent and sophisticated, posing challenges to NATO’s operational readiness and resilience. The development of GANDALF 4 is designed to enhance situational awareness in contested electromagnetic environments.
The recent testing phase focused on evaluating the antenna performance of the sensor. Collaboration between the agency’s Electromagnetic Warfare and Surveillance team and the procurement agency’s Ground Based Defence group played a central role in the campaign, facilitating knowledge transfer and improving efficiency, according to the team.
NATO has selected SandboxAQ as one of approximately 70 companies to participate in the 2025 Defense Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA) cohort. The selection process involved more than 2,600 submissions from 32 NATO countries. DIANA, established by NATO in 2023, aims to address complex societal challenges by bringing together innovative companies developing dual-use technologies for both commercial and defense applications.
SandboxAQ will join the cohort’s Sensing & Surveillance group, focusing on the development of its AQNav magnetic navigation system. AQNav is designed to provide a secure navigation alternative that does not rely on GNSS, making it resilient against jamming and spoofing. The system utilizes SandboxAQ’s proprietary Large Quantitative Models (LQMs), quantum sensors, and the Earth’s crustal magnetic field to offer an all-weather, day and night, terrain-agnostic navigation solution for military and commercial applications.
The AQNav system has undergone extensive testing, including more than 200 hours of flight tests with the U.S. Air Force, involving more than 40 sorties across various geographies and aircraft types1. In July 2024, AQNav demonstrated its capability to serve as a primary navigation source and showed potential for scalability across similar aircraft types without individual calibration.
As part of the DIANA program, SandboxAQ will receive resources, insights and developmental support to advance AQNav’s capabilities. The company will also have opportunities to test the system in specialized environments, leveraging DIANA’s network of experts in technology, commercial development and defense.
On Dec. 12, 2024, the European Union decided to include Bulgaria and Romania in the Schengen visa-free zone. On the same day, Bulgaria’s capital, Sofia, began experiencing interference with GPS signals. The interference, as reflected in aviation ADS-B systems and reported on GPSJam.org, continued through the new year and is ongoing as of this writing.
While these two events may be entirely unrelated, Vladimir Putin has a history of using GPS jamming and spoofing to show his displeasure with his neighbors growing closer to the West.
On Dec. 15, 2023, Poland activated a U.S. Aegis anti-missile system near its border with Kaliningrad, Russia. On the same day, Russia began jamming and spoofing GPS signals in northern Poland and parts of the Baltic. That interference persists to this day.
The interference in Sofia may be contributing to a prolonged Bulgarian political crisis. Politicians there have been struggling to form a new government since elections in October. Dec. 10 saw the beginning of a new attempt. Interference with GPS can undermine overall confidence in government systems and institutions — another of Putin’s goals for neighbors with whom he is displeased.
Another, though less likely, impact may be on Bulgaria’s electrical service. On Dec. 25, 2024, 20,000 households in western Bulgaria (Sofia is in the far west) lost electrical power and the outage continued for days. Many grid operators use GPS timing to help manage their systems. While press reports put the outages down to heavy snow and fallen trees, increased difficulty managing the grid might also be a factor.
Bulgaria’s GPS interference appears to be coming from somewhere in Sofia, not from Russian territory, as is the case in the Baltic. Yet Russia may still be involved, at least in a supporting role.
Unmanned surface vessels (USVs) are becoming a reality for many sea-going countries around the world. Belgium and The Netherlands have partnered to acquire a proven autonomous mine-clearing solution supplied by Exail Technologies in Paris, France.
A nearly $60 million contract awarded in July 2024 by NATO will allow Exail to deliver several hundred K-STER underwater vessels, which can find and destroy both floating and anchored mines.
Equipped with a shaped charge, the unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) is launched from a safe distance by a minesweeping ship, currently undergoing sea trials – the Oostende new generation minesweeper. Similar to the Kamikaze aerial drone, it autonomously seeks out a mine at a predetermined location and destroys it.
K-STER UUV encounters. (Photo: Exail)
Meanwhile, as the war in Ukraine continues, drone warfare continues to evolve. Ukraine has developed electronic warfare systems that have progressed from merely jamming control signals and GNSS navigation to actually spoofing GNSS guidance. These systems overcome direct satellite signals with a stronger signal, providing gradually changing guidance to the drone, ultimately steering it back toward Russian-friendly Belarus.
Several recent intense Russian drone attacks were with tens — and even hundreds — of Iranian Shahed attack dones. 151 were spotted in November alone, 148 of which were Shahid drones that carry an 88 lb explosive warhead. On November 26, the Ukrainian Air Force reported that Russia attacked with 188 Shahed drones along with a few Iskander-M ballistic missiles. Ukraine responded with aircraft, helicopters, shells fired from fixed ground installations, and signals designed to jam drone electronics and guidance systems. Around 80 attacking drones succumbed to these Ukrainian defenses.
In addition, electronic GNSS spoofing of more than 90 drones diverted them from their targets – this implies a widespread array of electronic resources that intercepted in-flight drones coming from Russia. Diverted from their planned tracks to their targets, these drones will crash when they eventually run out of fuel. In a large number of cases, the ground defense systems were able to steer the attackers toward Russian-friendly Belarus, where they also crashed when fuel was exhausted. So perhaps less than 50% of this specific attack resulted in the use of precious Ukrainian ordinance, a good sign for future defense capabilities.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the “Pond” (Atlantic Ocean), British and U.S. forces at bases in Southern England have been dealing with an uninvited invasion of overflying drones, somewhat similar to reported incursions over airforce bases (AFB) in the U.S., such as Langley AFB.
RAF Lakenheath is a joint UK/US base used by the US 48th Fighter Wing and is thought to also house NATO’s nuclear weapons – this base is one of four that is thought to have been harassed by drone overflights. Other UK bases which now also have heightened security include RAF Lakenheath, RAF Mildenhall, and RAF Feltwell in the Southeast and RAF Fairford in Southwest England. We might speculate that the drones could be collecting Video and maybe Lidar information on assets on the ground, but surely this has already been gained by spy satellites belonging to Russia and China, the principal suspects for these incursions — so what exactly could be the intent?
The incursions were happening at the same time that Ukraine was using UK Storm Shadow missiles against Russia. Some speculate that this might be a demonstration of capability by Russia, indicating an ability to quickly, without any opposition, gather a number of drones and fly them over UK NATO bases. Whilst unarmed for this demonstration, in the future, they could wreak havoc on aircraft and personnel. A number of criminal investigations are apparently underway to determine who was responsible.
In one way or another, GNSS is constantly in the news, even though it rarely makes the headlines. Three recent articles prove this point.
Matteo Luccio
The article “Starburst” in the March 4 issue of The New Yorker, written by staff writer Kathryn Schulz, details how the next big solar storm could devastate the U.S. power grid and communication systems and questions whether we are prepared for it. Schulz focuses repeatedly on the key role of GNSS and how devastating it would be if their signals were disrupted by a solar storm. She points out that a large solar storm has not occurred since widespread electrification, let alone in the digital age, and that some scientists now believe there is an approximately 12% chance of an extreme geomagnetic storm striking Earth in the next decade. “The Army,” Schulz wrote, “concerned about overreliance on vulnerable technologies, has reinstated courses in orienteering, and the Navy has resumed teaching sailors how to use a sextant.”
A March 12 article in WISPOLITICS — which bills itself as “Wisconsin’s Premier Political News Service” — reports on a letter from the chairman of the U.S. House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, Mike Gallagher, to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. Following reports that U.S. cell phones and other devices are receiving and processing signals from Chinese and Russian GNSS satellites, Gallagher asked Rosenworcel whether it is “contrary to FCC rules for handsets and other devices to receive and process signals from unauthorized GNSS constellations.” I have long wondered the same thing. If any of you readers has a firm understanding of this issue, please let me know. Gallagher also asked whether it is “the responsibility of component vendors, device makers, or carriers to ensure that such signals are not received and processed by devices that use GNSS” and whether the FCC has taken any enforcement actions on this matter.
A March 14 article by Elliot Ackerman and James Stavridis in The Wall Street Journal warns that, as its headline says, “Drone Swarms Are About to Change the Balance of Military Power.” Ackerman, a Marine veteran, is the author of numerous books and a senior fellow at Yale’s Jackson School of Global Affairs. Admiral Stavridis, U.S. Navy (ret.), was the 16th Supreme Allied Commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and is a partner at the Carlyle Group. “Drones have become suddenly ubiquitous on the battlefield — but we are only at the dawn of this new age in warfare,” they wrote. “[D]ozens or hundreds of drones in AI-directed swarms will have the capacity to overwhelm defenses and destroy even advanced platforms. Nations that depend on large, expensive systems like aircraft carriers, stealth aircraft or even battle tanks could find themselves vulnerable against an adversary who deploys a variety of low-cost, easily-dispersed and long-range unmanned weapons.” While the article focuses on AI and does not mention GNSS, the latter is a key enabling technology for UAVs, as readers of this magazine know well.
Safran Electronics & Defense has been selected by the Greek army (officially called the Hellenic Armed Forces) to enhance its tactical UAV fleet by incorporating four Patroller tactical UAVs. NATO‘s Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA) facilitated the contract on behalf of the Greek army during the Paris Air Show 2023.
Set to be implemented by 2024, the Patrollers will operate alongside Greece’s current fleet of 16 Sperwer tactical unmanned aircraft from Sagem, a French defense company. Greece also requested three ground stations.
The Patroller achieved a milestone in February 2023 when it became the first tactical UAV system officially certified to NATO airworthiness standard STANAG 4671.
Equipped with multiple sensors designed for intelligence missions, the Patroller UAV serves the needs of armies and homeland security forces. With an autonomy of more than 15 hours, the Patroller UAV also features a high payload capacity — allowing the integration of various specialized sensors and weapons, which enables it to meet diverse operational requirements.
How do/will/should North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces integrate GPS and Galileo for position, navigation and time?
Ellen Hall
“For improved resiliency, it would be a great move for NATO to integrate Galileo with GPS into their system. The ‘how’ will be difficult. Some of the challenges are that the EU consists of more than a single nation with which to negotiate complex security issues, such as whether NATO will be treated as a ‘third nation entity’ for the use of PRS. The initial Galileo development was difficult for all these reasons and the Europeans managed to sort it all out, so I’m confident that, if the desire is to do this, it can be done successfully.”
— Ellen Hall Imminent Federal
John Fischer
“In the interest of operational robustness and the criticality of the use case, NATO should integrate GPS and Galileo capability at the earliest. Both GPS’ M-code and Galileo’s PRS are encrypted, providing anti-spoof capability and extra frequency diversity, making jamming of our forces more difficult. Crypto key management for both systems may be an extra burden, but a single receiver capable of operating with either system individually or both simultaneously would be key for interoperability — always a driving factor for NATO. The capability is available, and NATO should take advantage of it.”
Now that balloon-season appears to be ending, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) are seeing more use in the war in Ukraine. With the delivery of an updated fast transport craft to the U.S. Navy, autonomous ship operations are expected to be tested extensively. In addition, use of collision-protected UAV is demonstrating high returns for nuclear facility inspections.
UAVs used in Russia-Ukraine war
UAV attacks on Moscow seem to be escalating. A Ukrainian UJ-22 UAV allegedly crashed March 2 near the village of Gubastovo, about 60 miles from Moscow. It’s not clear what the intended target was, or whether the UAV was armed, but an undamaged Gazprom gas plant is close to where the UAV crashed.
The UJ-22 UAV has a maximum range of about 500 miles. Therefore, to maximize its range, it’s unlikely that a big payload was onboard. It may have been just an attempt to assess how far the UAV could penetrate Russian airspace and which targets are in range from Ukraine’s border.
In an earlier apparent UAV attack, the Krasnodar oil facility about 500 miles from the Ukraine border was damaged. A group of Belarusian partisans announced that it attacked and damaged a Beriev A-50 Airborne Warning and Control aircraft (called Mainstay by NATO) using UAVs at the Machulishchy airfield near Minsk, escaping back into Belarus without incident.
The peaceful use of UAVs for the good of humanity seems to be taking a backseat in the escalating Russian-Ukraine conflict, where armed UAVs are enabling previously unheard-of incursions. Russia will likely respond, hopefully limiting action to legitimate military targets as Ukraine has done. However, the existing Russian stock of Iranian-made Shahed 136 “loitering munition” and the Mohajer-6 reconnaissance UAV might be running low. Ukraine has shot down at least 24 Shahed 136 UAVs through January and February and Russia has recently reduced its UAV attacks on Ukraine.
US Navy relies on autonomous capabilities
The U.S. Navy is making great strides in its efforts to incorporate ships with autonomous capability into its fleet. Several developments initiated in 2008 have led to the creation of a fleet of 12 Spearhead EPF Expeditionary Fast Transport ships built by Austal USA. The latest ship, the USNS Apalachicola EPF-13, has been outfitted during build with complete autonomy and has just joined the fleet. The EPF fleet is designed for the rapid deployment of troops, tanks/armaments and heavy equipment. The latest EPF-13 — built by Austal USA, L3Harris and General Dynamics Mission Systems — has a range of 1,200 miles, can accommodate the V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft, and clocks in at a maximum speed of 40 knots.
Image: Austal USA
The earlier ships incorporated automation of hull, electrical and mechanical/power systems, which are all now accessible on the bridge. The latest EPF-13 has added automated maintenance, health monitoring and mission readiness. The EPF 13 Apalachicola comes with the ability to run independent unmannered operations for up to 30 days. At 337 feet long and displacing 362 tons, the EPF can carry up to 600 tons of weapons and equipment, while running a draft of less than 15 ft. Alternatively, EPFs have sufficient capacity to transport 312 soldiers over short distances, plus a crew of 41 when fully manned.
Inspecting nuclear facilities with UAVs
Clean-up operations at nuclear waste facilities are continuing to use UAVs for inspection and assessment of locations that are difficult to access and potentially contaminated. Flyability intends to add a Miron RDS-32 radiation sensor to its Elios-3 UAV family to gather in-situ radiation measurements while inspecting complex confined spaces at nuclear sites.
In recent activity at a nuclear plant, an annual inspection of three tank rooms and collection of detailed visual video of a suspected leaking valve were readily accomplished in two UAV inspection sessions of a few minutes each.
The previous manual inspection process required the plant output to be reduced to 20% of normal capacity over a six-hour cooldown. When radiation levels became low enough, two inspectors dressed in protective gear climbed down into the first tank room where radiation levels exposed each person to around 250 millirem (2,500 µSv or about 10% of the allowed annual exposure). They took a few still pictures and measured radiation levels, then exited each hot area before repeating the process for the other two tank rooms. The whole time, the productive output of the plant was significantly reduced. Another six hours was required afterwards to restore the plant back to full output, never mind that personnel were exposed to a bunch of radiation.
Flyability’s solution is to fly an Elios UAV down into each tank room, take high-resolution video of the entire area in 1-2 minutes and repeat the process for each of the other tank rooms, without reducing plant output power. For detailed inspection of the suspected valve, the UAV was flown deeper into the reaction vessel. Detailed video was collected and the UAV was extracted — all within about 10 minutes.
The bottom line is that generation of around 4.8 GW of power, worth maybe $456,000, was saved using the Elios UAV inspection approach. No one was exposed to the higher radiation levels inside the facility, and significant time was saved for both the annual and suspected valve inspections. Incidentally, the valve in questions was cleared of any potential leaks.
Conclusion
In summary, developments in autonomy include use in the Ukraine-Russian war, more ship automation for the U.S. Navy, and more efficient inspection of nuclear facilities.
In mid-November, Russia destroyed a retired satellite with a ground-based anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon. This created significant debris, which endangered other assets in low-Earth orbit, including the International Space Station (ISS). Two Russian cosmonauts were serving on the seven-person ISS crew at the time.
Based on the ASAT demonstration and unclassified reports from the U.S. Director of National Intelligence, it is pretty clear that Russia can destroy all, or at least most, GPS satellites in one go.
What is less clear, is whether Russia would really do that.
To find out, Dana A. Goward spoke with George Beebe, who once served as the Central Intelligence Agency’s top analyst for Russia and Eastern Europe. He is now the director of programs at the Center for the National Interest, a center-right think tank.
Dana A. Goward: Russia’s threat to destroy GPS was made shortly after they destroyed an old satellite in space. What do you make of that demonstration, and all the dangerous debris it created?
George Beebe: Well, they were clearly sending a message — several messages, in fact. First, of course, that they have the ability to destroy satellites in space. This is part of a larger narrative they want to tell — that they are a world power which must be reckoned with. And it is no coincidence that this was done while they were amassing troops along Ukraine’s borders.
Another message is that they know the U.S. and Europe are very dependent on space, and we are vulnerable there.
DG: But the space debris will threaten satellites and people in low-Earth orbit for years to come. That seems to be reckless and counter to their own interest.
GB: While others see that as reckless and irresponsible, Russian officials almost certainly see it as an expression of resolve. That was actually another message. They were saying, “We are willing to endanger our own equipment and people.”
Translate that to their concern about keeping Ukraine from joining NATO and otherwise falling into the West’s sphere of influence. It might be, “We are willing to accept the pain in order to keep Ukraine from leaving our orbit.”
Unfortunately, I am not sure most Western leaders picked up on the “We are resolved” message.
DG: Attacking GPS would be a huge, devastating and dangerous move, though. How could things get so bad they would do that?
Beebe is the author of The Russia Trap. (Cover: Thomas Dunne Books)
GB: Russia sincerely believes it is generally threatened by the West, and specifically by NATO.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, they have seen their global influence recede, and Western influence on their borders greatly expand. Some of their neighbors have joined NATO. Others, like Ukraine, have not, but would like to eventually come under the NATO umbrella. For the Kremlin, this is unacceptable. It is akin to what Soviet missiles in Cuba were for the United States.
Over the last decade and a half, Putin has rebuilt the Russian military. He is now looking to draw lines in the sand for the West to not cross.
At the same time, the West feels threatened by Russia. Hitler’s aggression and refusal to be appeased by territorial concessions is standard reading in every Western history class. American and European leaders feel compelled to hold the line and not give into what they see as Putin’s territorial ambitions.
This is a very dangerous situation as both sides see themselves acting defensively and the other acting aggressively.
DG: I guess it is much easier to justify something to yourself and your compatriots if you think you are only acting in self-defense.
GB: Exactly. The problem comes when one side does something in self-defense and, in response, the other side feels compelled to do something as well. This can spawn an escalating tit-for-tat that spirals out of control into a bigger conflict no one wants.
DG: The West is imposing economic sanctions. At least that is harder to interpret as aggressive.
GB: Before World War II, the U.S. imposed severe economic sanctions on Japan in response to its expansionist moves in Asia. The sanctions were so severe that they were crippling and threatened to bring down Japan’s military government. The week before Pearl Harbor, the Japanese delivered a diplomatic note to the United States saying the sanctions amounted to an act of war. So, economic sanctions are not always an absolutely safe route.
DG: Do you think Russia would ever really attack GPS? And how might that go down?
GB: It depends on how backed into a corner they feel. They certainly know that our military and our homeland are very dependent on GPS, and we have no real alternative in place. It doesn’t help that they are much less dependent on GLONASS and have an alternative for when signals from space are not available.
So, they can definitely do more harm to us than we can to them by interfering with navigation satellites.
It would take a lot to goad them into physically attacking GPS satellites. That would be an irreversible step they undoubtedly understand could lead to all-out war.
Far more likely would be a cyber-attack on the systems controlling the GPS constellation. Such an attack could be harder to attribute to them. It could also be reversed if they got what they wanted.
I could also see them jamming GPS and Galileo signals across Europe and the United States as part of an escalated conflict. Russian forces excel at electronic warfare, and the jamming could easily be turned off once they achieved their goals, or if things seemed to be getting out of hand.
Photo: Stanislav Ostranitsa/iStock/Getty Images Plus/Getty Images
Russia warned it could blow up 32 GPS satellites with its new anti-satellite technology, ASAT, which it tested Nov. 15 on a retired Soviet Tselina-D satellite, according to numerous news reports.
Russia then claimed on state television that its new ASAT missiles could obliterate NATO satellites and “blind all their missiles, planes and ships, not to mention the ground forces,” said Russian Channel One TV host Dmitry Kiselyov, rendering the West’s GPS-guided missiles useless. “It means that if NATO crosses our red line, it risks losing all 32 of its GPS satellites at once.”
The International Space Station (ISS) Flight Control team was notified of indications of a satellite breakup, causing 1,500 pieces of debris to threaten the station. “Due to the debris generated by the destructive Russian Anti-Satellite (ASAT) test, ISS astronauts and cosmonauts undertook emergency procedures for safety,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.
“With its long and storied history in human spaceflight, it is unthinkable that Russia would endanger not only the American and international partner astronauts on the ISS, but also their own cosmonauts,” Nelson said. “Their actions are reckless and dangerous, threatening as well the Chinese space station and the taikonauts on board. All nations have a responsibility to prevent the purposeful creation of space debris from ASATs and to foster a safe, sustainable space environment.
“Russia has demonstrated a deliberate disregard for the security, safety, stability and long-term sustainability of the space domain for all nations,” Gen. James Dickinson, commander of U.S. Space Command, said. “Russia’s tests of direct-ascent anti-satellite weapons clearly demonstrate that Russia continues to pursue counterspace weapon systems that undermine strategic stability and pose a threat to all nations.”
Photo: Stanislav Ostranitsa/iStock/Getty Images Plus/Getty Images
