A Nov. 17 webinar will focus on ways to deter attacks on and interference with GPS satellites and signals. The webinar takes place 2:30-3:30 p.m. EST; register for free.
Rep. John Garamendi (D-CA) will provide opening remarks for the webinar, which is co- sponsored by Domestic Preparedness Journal and the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation. Garamendi is the chair of the House Armed Services Readiness Subcommittee and has long been concerned about the vulnerability of America’s GPS.
“America’s over-reliance on GPS makes it a high priority target for a wide range of bad actors,” said Dana A. Goward, president of the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation and one of the webinar moderators. “And, since other nations, such as China, Russia and Iran, have terrestrial systems they can use when space is not available, the U.S. is at a strategic disadvantage.”
This “technology resilience gap” is one of several dangers that could lead to armed conflict that webinar panelist George Beebe discusses in his book The Russia Trap. His concern is that having such a pronounced relative weakness can invite meddling and exploitation by adversaries. Even if done on a small scale, this could lead to a series of escalating responses ending in an unintended, much more serious conflict that neither party wants.
Beebe is vice president and director of studies at the Center for the National Interest. He spent more than two decades in government service as an intelligence analyst, diplomat and policy advisor, including service as director of the CIA’s Russia analysis and as special advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney for Russia/Eurasia and Intelligence Programs.
Eliminating the gap between the United States and its adversaries is key to protecting GPS and the nation, according to webinar panelist Greg Winfree, director of the Texas A&M Transportation Institute. Winfree previously served as an assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Transportation. While acknowledging there is no single answer, he has asserted that providing at least one alternative system will go a long way toward “getting the bullseye off GPS.”
The third webinar panelist, Scott Pace, has supported Winfree’s approach. Pace is the director of George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute and former executive director of the National Space Council. He has 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.
The stated goal of a recently published RAND study was to answer a question from Congress about what should be done to back up and complement the nation’s GPS. One of its findings was that the government should consider investing in a national timing network.
Yet the study’s report emphasizes the wrong things, according to some. So much so that it is working against establishment of a timing network to reinforce GPS.
Report Misleading
“The main thrust of the study’s report is that we don’t need another GPS-like, system,” said Pat Diamond. “That has always been fairly obvious. I don’t know anyone who has ever advocated for duplicating GPS.” Diamond is CEO and founder of a network company and is a member of the president’s National Space-based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) Advisory Board.
“By pounding so hard on the ‘don’t duplicate GPS’ drum, RAND hides its more important findings,” he said. “The public message comes across as there is no need to do anything.”
Diamond thinks the study should have better highlighted the things the federal government should do. “That is really the question Congress wanted answered,” he said.
RAND’s study supports four federal initiatives that “… appear to be cost-effective or close to cost-effective.” Included are a “timing-only” GPS-backup and support of high performance “geographically limited” systems.
Timing Essential, GPS Backup Needed
Cover: NSTAC
GPS timing signals are used in a wide variety of technologies including cell phones, IT networks, digital broadcast, first responders’ hand-held radios, and to synchronize electrical grids. Yet these signals from space are weak and easily disrupted.
A timing backup for GPS is also a long-standing recommendation of the president’s National Space-based PNT Advisory Board.
“There are few things more important to tech infrastructure today and tomorrow than timing,” according to Marc Weiss who was a lead researcher at the National Institutes of Standards and Technology for 35 years.
The RAND study was a cost-benefit analysis, which some have argued was not the best approach.
“Cost-benefit is always tricky,” says Greg Winfree, Director of the Texas Transportation Institute. “There are always a lot of assumptions. Small changes to any of the inputs can radically change the outcomes.” Winfree led civil PNT efforts during the Obama administration as an official at the Department of Transportation (DOT).
“One of my big concerns is that GPS is so important to so many things in America, that it is one of the most attractive targets for our adversaries. At least one alternate PNT that most people can access takes the bullseye off GPS,” Winfree said.
Scott Pace, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University (GWU) agrees a diversity of PNT sources is important. At a recent GWU event, Pace commented 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. Pace was the Executive Secretary of the National Space Council in the Trump administration.
In the book The Russia Trap, author George Beebe has similar concerns, citing the lack of a backup for GPS as a technology resilience gap. Russia, China, and Iran all have terrestrial backups for PNT signals from space while the United States does not. Beebe says this is a weakness that can be exploited and could lead to an escalating series of exchanges resulting in all-out war.
Government Investment in Location Services
The RAND study suggestion for the government to invest in highly accurate PNT services in some limited geographic areas cited emergency responders’ needs for precise location. Federal investment will likely be required, it says, as commercial entities cannot make a business case everywhere service is needed.
GWU economics professor Diana Furchtgott-Roth has written that the federal government needs to provide a complement to GPS. She served as a Deputy Assistant Secretary at DOT from 2019 to 2021 leading civil PNT issues for the government.
“Without federal participation, commercial providers won’t ensure adequate resilient services for everyone. Some sectors, such as finance, will have it, but others won’t. This is a matter of national and homeland security. The RAND report did not emphasize this sufficiently.”
Questionable Timing and Motivation
“This is a particularly bad time for a confused message,” said a congressional staff member speaking about the RAND study. “Congress mandated a timing backup for GPS in 2018, though the project was never funded. There is real momentum this year to provide that funding, but the way this study reads works against that.”
Others see the structure of the study’s report and the timing of its release as a deliberate effort to derail budget negotiations. One retired Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official sees a pattern but is at a loss to explain the motivations behind it.
“RAND’s study was completed in 2019, and it was used as the basis for a DHS report to Congress in April 2020. But DHS didn’t tell Congress about RAND’s findings on a timing network and other actions the government should take,” they said.
“The study being made public now saying ‘do not back up GPS’ smells like a deliberate attempt to derail funding for the timing system. Something two presidential advisory boards, telecom leaders, RAND and so many others agree is needed.”
“Why would someone want to do that?” they asked. “Why would they want to keep America’s PNT so much weaker than China’s, Russia’s, and those of other countries?”
Top-level current, former PNT leaders to discuss findings
A “Who’s Who” of positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) leaders will gather virtually at 11 a.m. PDT/2 p.m. EDT on May 5 to discuss findings of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DOT) GPS Backup Technology Demonstration, which took place in 2020.
Included in the “What Technologies Can Secure GPS?” webinar will be DOT Research and Technology leaders from the Obama and Trump administrations, Greg Winfree and Diana Furchtgott-Roth, and currently serving career DOT officials Karen Van Dyke and Andrew Hansen.
Robert Hampshire, current DOT Acting Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology, will make his first public appearance discussing PNT issues.
The event is sponsored by George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute and moderated by Scott Pace. Pace served as the executive director for the Space Council in the last administration. In that capacity, he was responsible for a series of directives and policies impacting PNT in the United States.
Describing the plan for the event, the formal announcement states, “Three separate laws have required the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to back up and complement the Global Positioning System, subject to congressional appropriations. To provide a roadmap, in January the department released its Complementary PNT and GPS Backup Technologies Demonstration Report.”
The program will open with remarks from Scott Pace, director of the Space Policy Institute, who will also moderate the discussion. Hampshire will offer introductory remarks. Van Dyke and Hansen will follow up with a presentation of the report. George Washington University Adjunct Professor Diana Furchtgott-Roth and the Texas Transportation Institute’s Greg Winfree will provide comments.”
A question-and-answer session will follow the addresses and discussion.
The event is free and open to the public, though advance registration is required. Registrants will receive a Zoom link. The webinar will also be recorded.
GPS expert Scott Pace has been chosen by the White House to serve as executive secretary of the National Space Council. Pace is currently director of the Space Policy Institute and Professor of Practice of International Affairs at George Washington University (GWU).
He also serves as a special counselor to the National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) Advisory Board.
Pace has a long career in space policy and is well known and highly respected in the community. Ever since the Trump Administration indicated that it would reestablish the Space Council, his is virtually the only name rumored to be in the running to serve as the head of its staff, according to the announcement on Space Policy Online.
The council was officially reestablished on June 30, and is chaired by Vice President Mike Pence. Pace was spotted at Kennedy Space Center last week where Pence addressed the KSC workforce, further fueling speculation that he would be appointed as head of the Space Council.
In its announcement, the White House said Pace has “honed his expertise in the areas of science, space, and technology” citing his career at GWU, NASA, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), and the RAND Corporation’s Science and Technology Policy Institute.
Pace received a bachelor’s degree in physics from Harvey Mudd College, a master’s in Aeronautics and Astronautics and Technology and Policy from MIT, and a Ph.D. in policy analysis from the RAND Graduate School.
During the George W. Bush Administration’s second term, Pace was NASA’s Associate Administrator for Program Analysis and Evaluation under then-NASA Administrator Mike Griffin. He was closely involved in formulating the Constellation program to return humans to the surface of the Moon and then going on to Mars.
His expertise is much broader, however. He was deputy director and acting director of the Office of Space Commerce at the Department of Commerce from 1990 to 1993, when that office reported to the Deputy Secretary of Commerce (instead of being part of NOAA as it is today).
He has been very active on GPS issues for many years, including protecting GPS spectrum at World Radiocommunications Conferences (WRCs) organized by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). He was a member of the U.S. delegation to the WRCs in 1997, 2000, 2003 and 2007.
He also has served as a member of the U.S. delegation to the United Nations Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (2009 and 2011-2015). Today he is vice-chair of NOAA’s Advisory Committee on Commercial Remote Sensing, of which he has been a member for several years.
John Logsdon, who founded GWU’s Space Policy Institute and is Professor Emeritus there, said via email that he could think of “no one more qualified” to take on the “essential task of crafting a strategic approach to using U.S. space capabilities to advance this country’s geopolitical interests and to forge productive collaboration among all government space actors and the private sector.”
Mary Lynne Dittmar, president and CEO of the Coalition for Deep Space Exploration (CDSE), also praised the announcement.
“Dr. Pace’s unique combination of experience in government, the private sector, and academia, and his internationally-recognized expertise in space policy, make him an exemplary selection” for the position. She added that CDSE looks forward to working with “the Council, its staff, and the vice president’s office to support U.S. leadership and strategic interests in space.”
CDSE is an alliance of space industry businesses and advocacy groups that support deep space human exploration and science.
