The U.S. Air Force’s fleet of GPS Block IIR and IIR-M satellites, manufactured by Lockheed Martin, have reached 200 collective years of operational life. The 20 satellites make up about two thirds of the current GPS constellation.
Originally launched between 1997 and 2009 to add capabilities to the GPS constellation and to replace other aging satellites, the 12 GPS IIR and eight IIR-M satellites have maintained an availability record of 99.96 percent, which represents only 10 minutes of down time per satellite during all their years of operation.
The 200-year milestone will be celebrated with a brief cake-cutting “ceremony” during ION GNSS, on Wednesday at 12:30 p.m., at the Lockheed Martin booth.
“This is a tremendous GPS operations and sustainment performance milestone, and we applaud the men and women of the Second Space Operations Squadron of the Air Force’s 50th Space Wing, as well as the industry team who support them,” said Mark Stewart, vice president for Lockheed Martin’s Navigation Systems mission area. “The world relies on GPS every day for things like synchronizing global banking and investing, shipping and transportation, search and rescue operations, ATM transactions and even precision farming.”
This spring, the IIR-M satellites played a major role in the continued modernization of the GPS constellation. To help manufacturers develop and test next-generation advanced civil GPS receivers, under the direction of Air Force Space Command and in collaboration with the Department of Transportation, these satellites began early broadcasting of test civilian navigation, or CNAV, messages on a new signal planned for all future satellites.
Making these milestones even more significant is the fact that the GPS IIR and IIR-M satellites were designed to last 7.5 years, or collectively about 150 years. All 12 IIR satellites are currently operating beyond their design life with the oldest operating for more than 16.5 years. Three of eight GPS IIR-M satellites have surpassed their expected life span and all satellites will have done so in 2017.
To meet evolving GPS user demands, Lockheed Martin is developing the next-generation GPS III satellites. These satellites will deliver three times better accuracy, provide up to eight times improved anti-jamming capabilities, and include enhancements which extend spacecraft life to 15 years, 25 percent longer than the newest Block IIF satellites. GPS III will be the first generation of GPS satellite with a new L1C civil signal designed to make it interoperable with other international GNSS.
Col. William Cooley, Director, U.S.A.F. Global Positioning Systems Directorate.
Colonel William “Wild Bill” Cooley, director of the GPS Directorate at Space and Missile Systems Center, discusses CNAV signals, GPS IIF launches, and the OCX with Defense Editor Don Jewell.
There is probably no busier United States Air Force officer than Colonel William “Wild Bill” Cooley, Ph.D., the director of the GPS Directorate at Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC), Air Force Space Command (AFSPC), Los Angeles AFB, California. He is the driving force for all things dealing with acquisition and development for GPS. Currently, he is juggling so many objects, it is amazing that he is not totally overwhelmed. Consider the issues with the Next-Generation Operational Control System (OCX), GPS IIF, GPS III, and military government user equipment (MGUE), plus a plethora of classified endeavors we can’t even discuss here. He is one busy man, but even with all that, he found time to sit down and answer a few questions in an effort to bring us all up to speed on GPS and PNT.
Don Jewell (DJ): One of the hot topics at all the symposia lately, here and abroad, has been the broadcasting of additional civilian navigation signals and messages. The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) originally objected and sent a strongly worded and probably unadvisable letter to General Shelton (AFSPC/CC) on the matter, but sanity prevailed, and the GPS navigation signals on L2C- and L5C-capable satellites began broadcasting with full navigation messages on April 28. However, we understand DOT still insists some restrictions be put in place for the L5C signal. Can you provide us with an update and a status on that program? Plus, what can users expect in the way of improved accuracy and signal availability?
Colonel “Wild Bill” William Cooley (WBC): As of April 28, the civil navigation message (CNAV) broadcast was implemented on all operational GPS satellites capable of transmitting the L2C and L5 signals. Currently, seven GPS IIR-M satellites broadcast L2C, and six GPS IIF satellites broadcast L2C and L5. On average, users may expect at least one L2C-broadcasting satellite to be in view at all times.
The CNAV message content now includes the minimum message set needed to support the positioning, navigation, and timing mission, namely Broadcast Message Types (MT) 10, 11, 30, and 33, which contain information about the satellites’ position, clock, health, and corrections, in lieu of the previously transmitted MT-0 placeholder or default message.
The Air Force intends to broadcast L2C messages with the health bit set healthy and L5 messages with the health bits set unhealthy until sufficient monitoring capabilities are available for the L5 signal. We expect the accuracy to be slightly less than the Legacy Navigation Message (LNAV) because we are only updating the satellites two times each week. The accuracy should improve to be slightly better than LNAV beginning this December, when we begin updating the CNAV message on each satellite daily.
DJ: The M-code (military code) and MNAV (military navigation) signals are also being broadcast on M-code-capable satellites. So, the same questions apply: what can our warfighters and government users expect as far as M-code availability and accuracy? What can you say about the multiple messaging capabilities both on the civilian and military (CNAV and MNAV) signals?
WBC: Like the civil CNAV message, the modernized military-data message MNAV will enable military users to take advantage of all of the performance improvements offered by a modernized military signal. We can expect continued accuracy improvements as newer satellites replace aging satellites.
MNAV broadcast testing will continue occasionally in support of developmental test events for the next-generation military GPS receiver cards.
DJ: I know we can get in sensitive territory here in a hurry, but since we are discussing the military signals, can you give us an update on the long-running MGUE and M-code program? When can government users expect to see an actual signal and a receiver with M-code chips and/or modules that utilize the military only signals? Plus — and here’s where we have to be careful — what can you say about the security, availability, and accuracy of the military signal?
WBC: The M-code-capable military receiver (MGUE) modules in development have successfully acquired and tracked M-code during live-sky tests, and we have many more tests scheduled. MGUE is expected to begin fielding by 2017, at which point at least 18 M-code-capable GPS satellites are expected to be on orbit, providing global four-in-view coverage of full M-code capabilities.
In the meantime, the most recent GPS IIF satellite launches have raised the total number of M-code-capable modernized GPS spacecraft to 14 (seven GPS IIR-M and seven GPS IIF). This provides four or more M-code satellites in view globally at least 50 percent of the time, and at least one M-code satellite in view continuously. This increasing M-code satellite signal coverage will enable effective, realistic, developmental and operational testing of MGUE receivers.
The new GPS III block of satellites will provide an M-code signal with greater security, and higher power, comparable availability, and accuracy when compared with the GPS IIF satellites, allowing users to operate closer to jammers and under trees, as well as with greater resistance to jamming and spoofing. Also OCX will offer significantly improved crypto protection and cyber security.
DJ: Recently, the U.S. Air Force successfully launched the fifth, sixth, and seventh SVs in the GPS IIF family of satellites in less than seven months. Quite a feat! Congratulations are in order for that milestone. However, in the past, the checkout times averaged approximately 30 days. In fact, speed in initializing the IIF SVs and declaring them operational seemed to be an unofficial goal. On GPS IIF-5, however, the rapid checkout timelines have been extended considerably. Can you enlighten us concerning the checkout program and what the government hopes to achieve?
WBC: There are three key dates with regard to checkout timelines: completion of on-orbit checkout, the transfer of Satellite Control Authority (SCA), and the Operational Acceptance of the vehicle. Measured from launch, the nominal on-orbit checkout timeline is 21 days. The nominal checkout for SCA transfer is 28 days. For the IIF-5 mission, the on-orbit checkout occurred in six days and the SCA in 11 days, a record for the IIF program!
The operational acceptance was completed 60 days later, following an on-orbit observation validating a requirement to see if the vehicle works as expected without receiving any commands from the ground segment in that time period.
This may explain the perceived extended checkout, which is in reality a delayed operational acceptance.
The average time to SCA transfer for the first four vehicles is 42 days. The average is inflated due to a long checkout of the first GPS IIF space vehicle, which took 88 days. From IIF-2 to the present, the average SCA transfer time has been 21 days.
Using SCA transfer time makes the most sense, because that is the time it took the SPO to go through the entire process (to include meetings and documentation) to hand over the vehicle.
DJ: Can you give us a status update on the entire GPS IIF family of satellites? How are the SVs faring in orbit, and are the clocks proving to be as stable and accurate as forecast?
WBC: The first seven of 12 GPS IIF satellites are currently on-orbit and meeting all mission requirements. Of the remaining satellites, one is being prepared for launch in October 2014, one is being prepared for shipment to Cape Canaveral AFS, two are in storage, and one is completing production. The oldest satellite is now four years old. The legacy GPS satellites have remained operational well past their design lives, demonstrating the high-quality engineering and mission-assurance practices used on this program. The clocks are improving the overall accuracy of the constellation with the best-ever day (measured in Signal-in-Space User Range Error) in June 2013 of 46.6 centimeters and the best week in April 2014 of 64.6 centimeters.
DJ: What exactly do the IIFs mean to the GPS modernization program, for the average user and for the GPS constellation and program as a whole?
WBC: The 12 Boeing-built GPS IIF satellites will provide improved signals that will enhance the precise global positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) services supporting both the warfighter and the growing civilian needs of our global economy. The next-generation satellites will provide improved accuracy through advanced atomic clocks, a longer design life than previous GPS satellites, and a new operational third civil signal (L5) that benefits commercial aviation and safety-of-life applications. It will also continue to deploy the modernized capabilities that began with the modernized GPS IIR satellites, including a more robust military signal.
The anomalies that we have seen on orbit have been resolved either through rework at the factory or through modifications in flight software.
GPS IIF Launch. The seventh of the follow-on generation, rising August 1.
DJ: Bill, that’s comforting, but what about the clocks on the IIF SVs? There were serious problems with the Cesium clocks on the first couple of launches. Are the operators now able to utilize or activate either the Rubidium or the Cesium atomic reference systems?
WBC: Don, the answer is yes. The system has triple redundancy with two Rubidium frequency standard clocks and one Cesium frequency standard.
DJ: What about signal strength and stability on the IIF birds?
WBC: In addition to an increased number of signals, GPS IIF provides more than the legacy power levels, and all signals on GPS IIF meet stability requirements. For reference, the GPS IIR-M series introduced one new L1 and two new L2 signals, while GPS IIF introduced the new L5 signal. All of these signals are part of the GPS IIF navigation payload and provide information including GPS date and time, satellite health, satellite ephemeris (for individual satellite positioning), and almanac information (for information on other satellites in the constellation).
The L1 frequency carries the L1 C/A code for civil users, and the L1 P (Y) code and L1 M-code for military users. The L2 frequency carries the first modernized civil signal, L2C, and the L2 P (Y) code and L2 M-code for military users. Finally, the L5 frequency carries the newest modernized civil signal.
Modernized GPS civil signals provide dual-frequency signals to all GPS users, enabling ionospheric corrections that greatly improve the accuracy. The new L5 signal will be used for safety-of-life applications, including aviation. In addition to an increased number of signals, GPS IIF provides more than the legacy power levels, and all signals on GPS IIF meet stability requirements.
DJ: Let’s move to the ground segment. OCX, the next-generation GPS Command and Control (C2) system, has literally moved to the right on the schedule timeline for every month it has been in existence since it was awarded in 2010. The end date just keeps getting farther and farther away. OCX is also currently exceeding the original contract budget by a large margin.
What’s the problem? Is OCX more difficult or complicated than originally planned? Is there any good news to report to users on OCX? What can users expect in the future?
Just so our readers know, just what is it that OCX brings to the GPS arena that cannot be provided by the current Architecture Evolution Plan (AEP) C2 system? Why do we need OCX? And in your opinion is it still a viable option? Are there contingency plans?
My apologies — that is about eight questions in one, but hopefully you can bring us up to speed on OCX.
WBC: Actually, the primary drivers of schedule delays for OCX are related to:
issues with the integration and testing of Block 0 on the cyber-hardened infrastructure; and
the concurrent systems engineering approach for Block 1 and Block 2, which drove a high rate of rework and inefficient staffing.
The OCX program is a pathfinder for many of the U.S. Air Force’s and Department of Defense’s most rigorous Information Assurance (IA) and Cyber Security requirements, which have turned out to be more complex to implement than anticipated.
OCX is a challenged program, but there is progress to report. Raytheon completed a hardware compatibility and integration test with the non-flight test bed of the Lockheed Martin GPS III space vehicle. This test validated the network infrastructure’s ability to communicate between the Lockheed Martin Launch and Checkout Capability and the Raytheon Launch and Checkout System, sending commands to the full-sized, functional satellite prototype test bed.
In addition, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin completed the third of five planned launch and early orbit exercises to demonstrate launch readiness. This exercise used new installments of the Raytheon OCX software and network infrastructure to demonstrate space-ground communications for initial acquisition, orbit-raising maneuver planning and execution, and basic anomaly detection and resolution.
Another recent accomplishment was the merging of the Cyber Security hardware and software baseline with the Block 0, Launch and Checkout System, mission applications. The completion of this merge allowed the program to enter formal integration and test activities, which are ongoing.
The full capabilities of OCX provide more than a dozen new capabilities for the GPS mission. OCX enables the full capabilities of the modernized navigation signals: adding L2C and L5 for civil users, M-code secure signal for military users, an internationally compatible L1C, as well as worldwide monitoring of these modern signals for quality and integrity.
OCX enables operation of the new GPS III satellites. As we discussed previously, OCX will provide the USAF’s most rigorous cyber-security capabilities, built in from the OCX foundation.
Raytheon just completed implementation of a program re-plan, which implemented lessons learned to date to correct many of the development challenges encountered, and created a lower risk schedule for delivery. With these changes, the program remains a viable and important component of the modernized GPS enterprise.
DJ: With that in mind, when do you currently plan on having the first GPS III OCX-controlled launch? Original schedules called for a late 2014 date, then it was 2015, and now we are hearing 2016 or as late as 2018 for OCX. Are there viable alternatives, and if so, can you tell us what they are and if they are being pursued?
WBC: OCX and GPS III are synchronized to support launch of the first vehicle in the second half of 2016, conditioned upon launch manifest availability. Contingency plans are being developed, but will only be implemented if warranted by the risk.
DJ: Now, Bill, I am not asking you to blow your own horn here, but frankly we have heard nothing but good reports from SMC and the GPS Directorate since you arrived about 14 months ago. That is a short period of time, but evidently you have made your presence felt and have had a major impact on the GPS program overall. What have you done differently that seems to work so well? To what do you ascribe your success so far?
WBC: Thank you, Don. I’m very happy to hear the reports are positive, but the credit goes to the men and women of the GPS Directorate, our federally funded Research and Development Center personnel, and our contractors. My job is to continually assess the challenges and barriers that slow modernization. I help resolve the challenges or get additional resources if needed to enable the team to accomplish their important mission.
I am incredibly fortunate in that the GPS team is passionate about our mission to maintain the Gold Standard for position, navigation, and timing (PNT) for the world. The entire directorate understands the critical role we play for civilian and military users worldwide, and that knowledge motivates and energizes us every day!
I’m the luckiest colonel in the Air Force because I get to work alongside this terrific team of government and contractor professionals on one of the most important missions in the U.S. Air Force.
DJ: Obviously you are proud of your team, and you know what it means to be a great leader. In closing, do you have any final comments?
WBC: Don, just that the GPS Directorate and our contractor team, along with our partners at the 2nd Space Operations Squadron (2SOPS) who fly the GPS constellation 24/7, take our job seriously and understand the important mission we have: to provide reliable and precise position, navigation, and timing services for America’s warfighters, our allies, and civilian users around the globe. GPS is the Gold Standard for space-based PNT today, and we are modernizing to ensure GPS is the Gold Standard for the future.
Actions Necessary to Reduce Vulnerability and Ensure Availability
By Brad Parkinson
(From the 25th Anniversary GNSS History Special Supplement)
Introduction
Brad Parkinson
About 40 years ago, we had a vision for positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT). That vision was more than successful, and became known as GPS. In some respects we have been almost too successful: PNT is frequently taken for granted. PNT, in the form of GPS, has become a powerful worldwide enabler for productivity and for safety. Estimated yearly value runs to many tens of billions of dollars.
For several years, I have been concerned about comments that denigrate GPS because the signal strength is relatively weak. The speakers have gone on to say it can be completely replaced with inertial or other techniques. Recently, comments by government officials further energized me to look at the full picture.
What can we do to reduce the vulnerability and ensure that the expectations of the users are going to be met? I summarize my solution as the PTA program and will elaborate in this article. At a top level, the term PTA means: Protect, Toughen, and Augment GPS to assure PNT. Note I say PNT, not GPS. The central issue is assuring access of PNT to the user, not the source of the information. I strongly believe that PTA is both achievable and absolutely necessary. Protecting PNT is particularly important to Europeans as they are just about to launch their fledgling Galileo system.
Speeches and travel only reach a limited number. When GPS World invited me to write a piece for the magazine’s 25th anniversary issue, it seemed an ideal opportunity to expand knowledge of the PTA program. The following is an edited form of a talk I have given a number of times, most recently at the European Navigation Conference in Rotterdam in April 2014.
GNSS initiatives and the GNSS community are growing rapidly, and certainly we are very enthusiastic about the progress of Galileo. But some places in the U.S. community are saying, “Well, this GPS band is underutilized; devoting all that bandwidth to a single system is not prudent.”
I beg to differ with that view. If you look at the separate signals in the L1 band around the world, by the year 2023 they will grow to be well more than 400 individual signals. Those signals service over 2 billion users, from emergency service providers to precision agriculture to crustal monitoring and many, many more. I have an entirely separate talk on “GPS for Humanity,” but that is not our subject today.
Calling the GPS frequency band “underutilized” simply points out ignorance, even among our supporters. For example, we say PNT to emphasize that GNSS provides four dimensions. Certainly, timing is the forgotten fourth dimension of GPS, and even our politician friends rarely understand the importance of this aspect. Yet we know that highly accurate timing, supplied by GPS, is absolutely critical for power distribution, for telecommunications, and for the financial sector.
It is instructive to summarize the penetration of the PNT “Stealth Utility” into the fabric of our society.
Market Size. Overall, GPS has more than 2 billion users worldwide. This represents a very diverse user group; we providers are continually seeing new and innovative ways to use GPS.
Figure 1, for which I am indebted to Frank van Diggelen, gives an estimate of the number of receivers currently fielded. Notice the number of military receivers: less than half a million. The gray bar depicts the industrial uses such as survey and machine control, which come in at about 4.5 million; these tend to be extremely high enhancers of industrial productivity.
Figure 1. GNSS market size, 2012.
We have to change the chart scale to depict bigger market segments. For example, recreation, automotive, and computing are shown on the lower half of the chart. In fact, mobile phones will still not fit on the chart. Attesting to the size of the estimated mobile phone base: one company alone will produce more than 900 million GPS-equipped smartphones this year. The pie diagram shows the dominance of mobile devices, but much higher productivity gains come from high-precision devices whose impact is very disproportionate to numbers of receivers.
We asked some economists, just what is all this worth? They looked at a subset of all the industries and concluded that GPS has a positive net effect to the tune of at least $32 billion annually. They had an expanded study that suggested about $90 billion annually. So, for those who question the value of GPS, the answer is that the net yearly returns to our national investment are more than 1000 percent. (Note: National investment is about $3 billion annually.)
To ensure these enormous economic benefits of PNT, there are two fundamental needs, and we providers must assure that they are met. The first and most important need is availability.
Availability. When we say availability, it is defined in a certain way; it means that PNT is available at the application-specified accuracy. We usually measure that accuracy at the 90th percentile: only 10 percent of the time can that error be exceeded.
Integrity. The second user need is the required integrity. That means that when the user expects a specific accuracy, the system is not lying to him. Integrity assurance is very much a focus of both the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and, in the United States, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). In many cases they require that PNT errors not exceed specified bounds more than once in 10 billion measurements (1 x 10-7). This integrity level requires so many samples, it is virtually impossible to verify experimentally; we have not had that many airplane landings, but it can be calculated. The metric we use is how many minutes GPS is not available — unavailability — at the specified accuracy and integrity. That is more easily understood than availability that aproaches 99.9XXX percent. The usual goal is that unavailability be zero.
We have an independent assessment of how well we are doing: FAA’s Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS). They put out a report card with a lot of numbers. GPS clearly deserves a grade of A+.
And it will get better. The U.S. government’s PNT Advisory Board, which I co-chair, recently advocated that the full navigation message be added at the new civil frequencies, the L2C and L5C signals. The Air Force has now complied, thanks to strong support from General Willie Shelton. This makes two more civil signals fully available. They currently expect 2.9 meter ranging accuracy, but by the end of the year the Air Force operators expect the same full accuracy as the rest of the signals, on the order of 0.5 meter of ranging error.
This is an outstanding picture.
So What’s the Problem? A statement made by a high-level U.S. government official in my presence exemplifies the problem: “GPS is much too vulnerable. We must replace it with new inertials and chip-scale atomic clocks.”
I found this statement appalling. Unfortunately, it was a meeting where you don’t normally speak up, and I didn’t. Nonetheless, to me, that was totally wrong.
GPS indeed has a very weak signal, and it depends on having clear line-of-sight to four satellites. But in my opinion, a much better statement is what I call the PTA solution. Our goal should be to:
Protect the system and the signal.
Toughen the receiver and the system.
Augment GPS as needed to ensure users’ PNT requirements are met.
The focus is ensuring positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT), not merely ensuring GPS.
Fundamental Prerequisites for PNT
The first prerequisite for GPS-based PNT is a receivable, clear, and truthful(truthful implies full integrity) ranging signal. There are five main challenges to this.
Too-powerful authorized signalsnearby. This aspect snuck up on our community. The FCC authorizers were about to license a powerful signal in the frequency band adjacent to GPS, drowning out any hope of receiving the GPS signal. This can be called the authorized jammer. All PNT providers must be very vigilant about this; we have seen ignorant elements of the government poised to do great harm with well-intended but destructive actions, without knowledge of the unintended consequences.
Natural Interference. This interference, the cause of delays and attenuation, is reasonably well understood, and the subject of much research, dating back to when we first defined GPS. Random events such as solar flares can potentially cause great harm.
Inadvertent Natural or Manmade Jamming. A nearby device that creates spurious, destructive emissions can be a serious problem for GPS receivers. This class tends to be manageable by well-designed receivers.
Collateral Interference. An example is a person who wants to evade tracking but is inadvertently jamming nearby GNSS receivers in addition to his own local receiver.
Deliberate Jamming or Spoofing. This is perhaps the major concern for developers and users. I will discuss this further later.
There is a second major prerequisite: satellite geometry. The user who cannot see enough of the sky is called “sky-impaired.” There are two possible underlying problems:
The satellite constellation has “brown-out” because of failures or inadequate numbers; or
The user is operating in a mountainous or urban area with high, local shading angles.
Overcoming sky-impairment requires a denser constellation, or use of multiple GNSS.
Protect, Toughen, Augment
What can we — as developers, operators, and manufacturers — do to overcome the PNT availability challenges for our users? My solution is PTA. The good news is that quite a few of the actions I recommend are underway — in fact, many of GPS World’s readers are active participants.
I am going to examine these three PTA principles, expand on them a bit, and hopefully explain a few things that help focus on a broad solution.
Protect the System and the Signal
This can be organized into seven actions: three PreActions and four ReActions. PreActions are before there is serious interference, and ReActions obviously come after interference is occurring.
First, the PreActions.
Protect the Spectrum. The chart in Figure 2 represents the frequency plan for the L1 band, and displays some of the sources of the 400 signals I referenced earlier. The blue star, GPS L1 C/ A, is the only fully operational and reliable signal in the world right now. The red star is the U.S. GPS military signal. You can see it has important power lobes close to the band edge. The black star is M-code, the new military signal of the United States.
Figure 2. Frequency plan for the L1 band.
The Galileo power curve, which is pale green, has very significant nodes close to the band edge. Of course, the Galileo PRS (the magenta star) is right on the band edge. The imperative for these wider bandwidths is that they produce sharper correlation edges and consequently produce greater measurement precision. This leads to greater accuracy, and greater usefulness and utility for many PNT users.
Reallocation of radio bands adjacent to GNSS poses a significant threat. The band edge of the proposed high-power communication signal (sometimes called broadband) appears as the black vertical line. It is obviously very close to the edges of many of the colored PNT signals. Tests conclusively demonstrated unacceptable levels of interference with L1 C/A.
Consider the proposed, high-powered terrestrial signal one quarter-mile from a GPS receiver. This produces a power ratio of 5 billion (broadband) to one (GPS). To visualize that power ratio, consider Niagara Falls, which produces about a billion watts. Compared to that, GPS power is a tablespoon of water dropped from five feet, once per second (about 0.2 watts). This is the power ratio that was almost authorized with 40,000 ground-based transmitters in the U.S. At a city block away, the effect is 10 times worse.
To quantify interference effects, some initial tests were run and measured broadband effects used for analysis. Cell-tower locations near Las Vegas, Nevada, approximated the broadband transmitter locations. The nearby airport, McCarran Field, has three RNAV (GPS) approaches. As expected, GPS users on the ground would be significantly jammed, but the effect on aircraft would be nine times worse than the impact on ground receivers. This is due to altitude (line of sight), geometry, and the sensitivity of aircraft receivers.
The 12 broadband transmitters around McCarran Field would jam all of the RNAV GPS approaches to all three runways. Signals of this type would effectively shut down or severely limit operations at the airport.
Signals in the GPS band will increase in the next decade as the newer GNSS become operational. The proposed, adjacent broadband is even more incompatible with these newer signals since they will be closer in frequency. Note that the whole approach was rejected, solely on the basis of L1/CA. It was not even tested against the other, more susceptible, modern signals. The worst would have been yet to come, had they been authorized to broadcast in the adjacent band.
Adjacent bands can continue to broadcast non-GNSS signals originating in space because the power levels will be comparable with the PNT spectrum. But we must be very vigilant to stop any high-power terrestrial signals from being allowed. They would become, effectively, authorized jammers. There should be no spectrum reallocation to ground transmitters until technology has been thoroughly demonstrated to solve any problems, (particularly for the high-precision users) and there is enough time to re-equip the users.
Europeans should have two other important frequency authorization concerns. First, there is a legal barrier within the United States to using Galileo signals. They have not been formally authorized. I think it is a bureaucratic glitch, but it is something we in the United States have to solve; we do want to use all GNSS signals. Stay tuned!
There is another concern. A group at the Electronic Communications Committee, European Commission, recommends allowing pseudolites in the L1 GNSS band. As an experienced user of pseudolites for aircraft landing and some other applications, I believe this is a very risky idea; pseudolites can be very useful, but frequencies should be found elsewhere to avoid unexpected interference.
Stiff Legal Penalties for Interference. The second PreAction is to enact stiff legal penalties for GPS jamming, both in terms of jail time and fines. The goal is to deter the ubiquitous $33 GPS jammer that one can buy on the Internet.
On the U.S. FCC website, the agency lists the penalties for having a GPS jammer. Forfeitures range up to $16,000, and they might even put you in jail. The Australians take a much stronger view: up to five years imprisonment or $850,000 in some cases. Some people are alarmed by these heavy penalties and call them brutal. However, they are not always imposed, and if jamming and spoofing is intentional, especially where the landing of airplanes is concerned and lives are at stake, I think a strong deterrent is warranted.
Stop Jammer Manufacturing, Sales. The third pre-action is to prevent proliferation by shutting down manufacturing and web sales of jammers. What is the status?
The FCC website states that manufacturers should comply with the law: stop marketing these devices in the United States and stop selling and shipping to addresses in the United States. The loophole is you apparently can manufacture these devices if you sell them outside the U.S. Now, I have a little difficulty with this. I have pointed this out to the DHS and others; hopefully, stronger action will be taken.
The FCC told me in an open meeting a few months ago that they were shutting down the websites where these devices are sold. But about three weeks ago, I went online and immediately found a website that sells nine different devices to jam GPS and cellphone devices. Indeed, there were jammers, all very affordable, for jamming just about everything. More recently, the FCC assessed a multi-million dollar penalty against such a jammer manufacturer. We will see if this actually happens. I hope they accelerate these efforts.
Now for the ReActions.
Detect Jamming. To stop jamming, the first step is to know when it is occurring. There are a variety of ways to do this. Some devices or concepts are already on the table: for example, a Chronos CTL3510 GPS Jammer Detector, an Exelis Signal Sentry Jammer Detector, and the J911 cell phone detection and reporting of jamming, an example from NavSys.
The idea behind the NavSys J911 is that all GPS-equipped smartphones have the capability to detect jamming. This does not pinpoint jammer location, but alerts authorities to the problem. Phone location can be reported to a central database for the next two actions.
Pinpoint Jammer Location. Techniques range from directional antennas to time-difference-of-arrival using Fast Fourier Transforms. The latter was demonstrated for the FAA at Stanford more than 10 years ago: location pinpointed within five meters. Cell towers could implement such techniques, since they have accurate time and could run correlations. There are already commercial GPS jamming locators: something called a JLOC (NaySys Jammer Locator). The British are using similar techniques for jammer detection on some of their freeways.
Eliminate Jammer. Having pinpointed the jammer, the next step is to physically eliminate it. What is the status? At Newark Airport there is an FAA, ground-based GPS augmentation system antenna right next to the turnpike. They are part of a blind landing system. In early 2010, there was an infamous jammer interfering with the FAA GPS receiver. It took three months to locate the offending truck driver and shut down the jammer. The good news is that, more recently, in the same general location, they located a similar moving jammer within 24 hours after the interference started. However, these are very special locations. Recent studies have suggested that interference sources are much more widespread. Note: Only certain enforcement personnel are authorized to seize the jammer and arrest its operator.
Prosecute. Having located the offender, the law should then be applied to prosecute. Leeway should be applied, commensurate with the circumstances. In this New Jersey case, the authorities say the perpetrator is liable for a forfeiture of $31,875.
Toughen Receivers
There are at least five well-known ways to toughen receivers, thereby increasing jam resistance:
Increased satellite signal spreading (such as L1C, L5) allowing greater processing gain;
Integration with inertial navigation components;
Digital beam-steering or null-steering antennas;
Increased satellite power such as L5 (a difficult and fairly expensive technique);
Local antenna shading, for example, the top of an airplane, which is shaded from the jammer.
These improvements cascade and are cumulative, but a remaining issue is to make such techniques more affordable.
To illustrate these anti-jamming techniques, consider the effective area of a 1-kW jammer located on the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. A basic high-quality GPS receiver, within a line-of-sight range of 20 miles, will stop providing PNT. Simply using the newest L1C spread-spectrum GPS signal reduces the jamming area by about two thirds, allowing operation to about 10 miles from the Capitol. Adding inertial aiding allows PNT to within three miles, and adding digital beam-forming antennas and using aircraft natural shading brings the effective radius to about 0.1 mile, about the size of the capital building.
The point is toughening the PNT receiver with the technologies mentioned is an extremely effective strategy. It would require over 60,000 jammers to cover the same area as the original non-toughened GNSS receiver.
Some techniques are very affordable today, while others, such as digital beam-forming antennas, remain too expensive for the ordinary user. In addition, there is a potential U.S. problem of export restrictions. Unfortunately, many of these existing restrictions have simply incentivized non-U.S. development of equivalent capabilities.
Augment
The last element of the PTA construct is to augment or substitute PNT sources. We are all aware of the coming revolution in multiple PNT sources from new GNSS. An all-GNSS receiver diversifies the frequencies and the signals, thereby reducing vulnerability to interference. It also improves availability for the sky-impaired user because of densification of satellites sources. Using satellites from multiple constellations can significantly improve availability, provided integrity requirements are met.
With these additional GNSS constellations, there are three major levels of cooperation:
Compatible: no mutal interference;
Interoperable: working to allow common time and geodesy system;
Interchangeable: using accurately calibrated biases and offset. Any four SVs will suffice.
The major issue again is probably integrity, because to ensure economic value, availability requires known integrity. As far as the U.S. FAA and ICAO are concerned, for precision aircraft operations the integrity value should be that the system be “out of spec” less than once in 1 billion times. To be productive they also would like zero minutes of unavailability. That may seem extreme, but commercial aviation and public safety demand it. Regarding integrity, some new GNSS are clearly making faster progress than others.
It is useful to further examine the densifying opportunity of additional GNSS. The chart in Figure 3shows how densification can impact the user. The number of satellites (SVs) available in the sky (assumed optimal distribution) is shown. The colors refer to whether 0, 1, or 2 SVs are out of commission for maintenance or repositioning (typical maximum is 1 for GPS). The measure of effectiveness is minutes of outage per day. Consider a shading angle of 60 degrees, representing a user near a rugged mountain slope area or a city. With the nominal 24 SV GPS constellation (the GPS specification is 24 despite the U.S. having 31 active SVs), the outages, due to geometry alone, are six to ten hours. Improvement with additional satellites is dramatic and quite non-linear. With 33 satellites (about a 37% increase in density) outages are zero minutes per day to 33 minutes if one satellite is out for maintenance (reduction by a factor of over 10!). Of course, SVs could be from different GNSS constellations if they are truly interchangeable and have the required integrity. The clear message is that about 33 SVs are needed to cover reasonably high elevation angles.
Figure 3. How densification of additional GNSS can affect the user.
Integrity Monitoring. Currently, the U.S. GPS control segment continuously monitors GPS satellites. If a fault is found, they set the satellite inoperative until the problem is resolved, which may take many minutes. This alarm time is not fast enough for precision aircraft landing and approach (the requirement is six seconds to alarm). For these rapid integrity alarms, the United States relies on the FAA’s WAAS, and Europe uses EGNOS to monitor the basic GPS L1 C/A signal. Soon, the EGNOS message will include Galileo integrity alerts. Unfortunately, the United States does not yet have a plan for reciprocal WAAS monitoring of Galileo signals. In fact, formal approval to even use these signals has not yet been granted by the U.S. FCC.
Self Integrity (RAIM). If an all-GNSS receiver has more than six satellites in view, the user can use the Receiver Autonomous Integrity Monitoring (RAIM) technique. This allows the user to cross-check each measurement against others to find erroneous satellites and guard against spoofing. Take the recent GLONASS situation. With a good RAIM PNT receiver, the user could quickly isolate the large errors from the combined set of GPS/GLONASS measurements. In fact, some deployed receivers did just that. If all GNSS are totally interchangeable, it will be enormously helpful to implement RAIM.
The recent, prolonged GLONASS outage saddened us all because it reduced the credibility of all GNSSs. We hope the Russians will be forthcoming in announcing what happened and the corrections that are being made; hopefully, it won’t happen again.
Fortunately, there is a third independent, real-time tracking network of 200+ sites, known as the Global Differential System (GDGPS). Although NASA administers GDGPS, local-country scientists maintain and operate individual sites in near real time. GPS is monitored down to centimeter precision.
A central issue for GDGPS is whether the integrity monitor capability itself has integrity. Because of redundancy and independence, a form of inverse RAIM, hereby named System Autonomous Integrity Monitoring (SAIM), can be used. Figure 4 depicts the number of independent looks or ranging measurements to a single satellite over various points on the Earth. You can see in the dark areas the value is 60, and even in the relatively unmonitored areas around South America, the redundancy is 20. At a typical spot, perhaps off Spain, it depicts 50-fold redundancy. By cross-checking the dozens of GDGPS measurements for each satellite, a strong integrity cross-check can be created. The GDGPS plan is to also monitor Galileo as it becomes operational. Thus, GDGPS has excellent prospects to provide real-time integrity assessments for all users and all operational constellations. We need plans to connect all users to these potential integrity alarms.
Figure 4. The number of independent looks or ranging measurements to a single satellite over various points on the Earth.
There are three classes of ground-based augmentations:
Pseudolites. Ground augmentations could also include pseudolites broadcasting GPS-like signals for additional ranging. While somewhat helpful, this technique cannot cover large areas and can act as a strong interference source if the signal is in any GNSS frequency band. For this reason, in my opinion, pseudolites should never be authorized in GNSS frequencies.
Distance-Measuring Equipment. Modernized DME, planned as a GPS supplement by the U.S. FAA, is very valuable for the airborne users. Most ground users derive no benefit from DME because they do not have line of sight to the widely scattered transmitters. Ohio University’s Frank van Gras is working for the FAA on a DME plan should GPS not be available. It involves moving from the so-called legacy DME to the enhanced DME to ensure continuous aviation operations.
eLoran. eLoran, covering expandable local regions, uses a powerful signal at an entirely different frequency. It is two-dimensional, but in calibrated areas differential (eDLoran) is perhaps as accurate as 10 meters for harbor areas and similar purposes.
I chaired a study of eLoran for the FAA in 2006. Initially skeptical, the study members finally concluded (unanimously) that eLoran:
meets the needs of all identified critical applications: 10–20 meter navigation accuracy for harbor entrance; 0.3 mile required navigation performance (RNP 0.3); stratum 1 frequency precision and 50-ns time accuracy.
is a modern system: new infrastructure, solid state transmitters, state-of-the-art time and frequency equipment, uninterruptible power supplies; new operating concepts, time of transmission, all-in-view signals, message channel with differential corrections, integrity; new digital user equipment, processes eLoran and GPS signals interchangeably, compact H-field antennas eliminate p-static.
is affordable: Less than $143M to fully complete eLoran, avoid costs of decommissioning existing Loran-C infrastructure; operations and maintenance currently $37M/year, reduced with eLoran-enabled automation.
And our group concluded it was the most prudent and cost-effective general augmentation or backup to GPS.
The National PNT Advisory Board also unanimously recommended that we deploy eLoran. The departments of Transportation and Homeland Security supported it; then, after a change of administrations, in a budget crunch, it was defunded, and the dismantling of existing Loran C stations began. Congress now may be taking action, and the recent GLONASS outages should give an impetus to that.
Who Will Implement PTA?
To my knowledge, many elements are currently being pursued, some by GPS World readers. But I can identify no entity that has the authority, the knowledge, the breadth, and the resources to create a single, well-focused program. This reminds me of a fable from Aesop regarding ants. When no leadership emerges, the ants have to band together to solve the problem. Yes, I am suggesting that we are the ants and we all must contribute to the solution, as well as seeking governmental agencies to step up to the responsibility.
In that regard I have a “to do” list. We must:
Protect PNT.
Vigorously defend the spectrum.
Work with lawmakers to increase legal penalties for PNT interference.
Work with manufacturers and law enforcement to improve timeliness and accuracy of interference identification (crowd-sourcing, every cell phone a detector).
Field jammer location equipment.
Toughen PNT.
Develop industry (ICAO/RTCA/RTCM) standards for deep inertial integration and directional antennas.
Develop vector receivers (all GNSS).
Continue to implement ARAIM and inertial for integrity (+WAAS/EGNOS).
Encourage users to move to rugged receivers.
Augment PNT.
Expand integrity notifications to include GDGPS.
Develop RTCA standards for seamless DME and GPS/GNSS.
Implement eLoran and develop RTCM standards for seamless use.
Develop an international process for integrity certification of all GNSS (GLONASS, Galileo, and BeiDou).
In conclusion, the rumors of the death of GPS, in my opinion, are greatly exaggerated. Let’s not throw out the baby with the bath water. Instead let’s accelerate and expand PTA to Protect our band, and Toughen our receivers, and Augment GPS to ensure that PNT is available for all users now and in the future.
In the words of American poet Robert Frost,
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But we have promises to keep,
And miles to go before we sleep,
And miles to go before we sleep.
Thank you.
BRAD PARKINSON has been the Edward C. Wells Endowed Chair (emeritus) at Stanford University, where he is a recalled professor of aeronautics and astronautics.
He co-founded the well-known Stanford GPS Laboratory and led the development of many innovative uses of GPS, including blind aircraft landing, precision farm tractors, and the prototype of the FAA’s WAAS. He also directed development and was a co-PI for the successful test of Einstein known as Gravity Probe-B sponsored by NASA. He worked in various executive or board capacities at Trimble Navigation, Intermetrics, Rockwell International, and The Aerospace Corporation.
As an Air Force colonel, from 1972 to 1978, he was the chief architect and first director of the NAVSTAR GPS development program, retiring from the service after orbiting the first GPS satellites and proving GPS capabilities. He is a fellow of five professional societies and recipient of dozens of awards, including:sharing the 2003 Draper Prize with Ivan A. Getting for leading the development of the Global Positioning System.
The Royal Institute of Navigation is launching a new international conference series, tackling some of the biggest issues across the domains of modern navigation: land, sea, air and space.
The RIN is now accepting abstracts for the conference.
The International Navigation Conference 2015, set for February 24-26, 2-15, is planned as a first event in a new series of world-class conferences. The first conference will highlight the state of the art in fields such as GNSS and Galileo, indoor positioning, autonomous transport, security and resilience of navigation in the world of cyber attacks, and new quantum technologies. The event will be of special interest to the maritime, aviation, PNT, transport, research and development and security communities.
Speakers, and the topics they will discuss, include:
Privacy In Tracking (smartphones and indoor navigation) – Google
Security and resilience — Dana Goward, president and executive director, U.S .Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation
Multi-Constellation GNSS — Gian Gherado Calini, GSA
Multi-Sensor Integration — Professor Dorota Grejner-Brzezinska, The Ohio State University
Quantum Technologies — Sir Peter Knight, professor of Quantum Optics and Senior Research Investigator, Imperial College London
Emerging Trends and Current Challenges — Colin Beatty FRIN, CBiL
Autonomy in transport — BAE, ASTREA
Legal Aspects of Navigation — Professor Frans von der Dunk, Institute of Space Law, Leiden University
Artist’s rendering of GPS III satellite (courtesy of Lockheed Martin).
So, there I was, sipping a cold green tea in the shade on my back deck in the beautiful foothills of the Rocky Mountains in early June, when the phone began to ring off the hook. Upon answering, I was hit with a barrage of questions. Have you seen the GPS III Sources Sought? What should we do? Do you have any advice? Should we respond? But by far the question I thought expressed most everyone’s initial reaction of incredulity was “Are these guys serious?” For frankly this Sources Sought does contain a bit of a giggle factor.
The questions continued and the phone rang all week. Officially the Sources Sought being referenced is the GPS III Space Vehicles Production Readiness Solicitation Number: FA8807-14-R-0008. Prepared or not prepared by, take your pick, the space acquisition folks at SMC (USAF, Space and Missile Systems Center), and it has caused quite a stir in the PNT (position, navigation and timing) industry.
Before we get ahead of ourselves, I should explain exactly what a Sources Sought means in terms of what the U.S. government is looking for and how to respond — in my humble opinion of course.
First a Sources Sought, as defined by the business folks at Georgia Tech (GTPAC) who have researched the matter thoroughly and who I absolutely agree with, is not an actual bid or proposal solicitation; instead, it’s a solicitation of interest. You should think of a Sources Sought as market research being conducted by a government agency or service to determine the capabilities and interests of the marketplace in a specific area, product or capability. This specific Sources Sought should be of interest to companies having an interest and capability to produce products relating to GPS III specifically.
So, that’s the boring official definition, but what is a Sources Sought really? Certainly, the official definition works, but more often than not in my experience, the Sources Sought has also been used to:
Determine what companies, new and established, are players and who is still in the game.
Determine what partnerships might be formed and how companies might work together to provide a required and often difficult capability. Often government acquisition officials will discover a new capability from a trusted supplier, or discover new teaming arrangements that provide a synergy otherwise unavailable.
Determine who is paying attention.
See which companies answer the announcement. Acquisition officials say it is often just as interesting and enlightening to see which companies do not submit a response as it is reading the proposals of the responders, especially if the Sources Sought is being used as justification for a Sole Source award.
Determine if the project has any hope of succeeding, and if so, how do various companies approach the problems involved?
Provide an official and public catalyst for lethargic or too-comfortable contractors that are not getting the job done on a current contract. Fear can be a great motivator.
Enact the old marketing axiom, “Let’s run it up the flag pole and see who salutes.”
Regardless of what you feel the real reason or reasons for the GPS III Sources Sought might be, or even if you have doubts about the seriousness of the release, the one hard and fast rule among marketers is that if you have any capability that even vaguely matches the Sources Sought announcement, then by all means respond.
The official GTPAC advice — and again, I totally agree — is to always respond to a Sources Sought if it appears to be of any interest to you. Just as I have always said to company marketing reps, when asked about the company’s capabilities, the answer, a la Marketing 101, is always “Yes” until it is emphatically “No.” As in:
“Can you build that MDU?”
“Absolutely!” (Stage whisper) “What’s an MDU?”
“Dude, it’s a Mission Data unit.”
“Oh yeah, that MDU. Of course we can build it!”
It may be hard to believe, in this technological day and age, but contracting officials frequently complain about the limited responses they routinely receive to Sources Sought. Responding is usually quick and painless, and can be the first step to place your company in the running for a lucrative government contract. It distinguishes you from your competitors, who did not take the time or effort to respond. The bottom line is it may very well lead to an inside track on an eventual government contract. Just like poker — you can’t win if you are not in the game.
Of course, the reverse is also true, as almost every Sources Sought states. There are no guarantees, and a Sources Sought announcement may — or may not — be followed up by the agency or service with the issuance of an actual bid or RFP (Request for Proposal). The GPS III Sources Sought legalese reads this way: “This notice does not constitute a Request for Proposal. There has been no decision to develop an RFP for the effort in this sources sought notice.”
You take your chances, but nominally it is time well spent, as most Sources Sought require very little in the way of scripted paperwork and government forms. Sometimes the response may be in the form of a simple response on company letterhead laying out your qualifications and stating clearly that you and your company are interested.
However, the government being the government, more often than not the reverse is true, and there may be very specific instructions in a Sources Sought for responding. GTPAC recommends, as do I, that your company follow these instructions to the letter. Give the government no more or less than requested — in other words, give the federal agency or service which posted the Sources Sought notice exactly what it asks for in exactly the form it asks for it.
Now that we are all on the same sheet of music and fully understand exactly what a Sources Sought announcement means, why did this particular GPS III Sources Sought generate so much interest?
Caught off Guard
First I think, well actually I know, this announcement caught almost everyone off guard. It was a surprise, even to those of us who heard rumors about it for some time, not only because of the timing, but also the scope. It far exceeded what most everyone expected —we will get to that shortly. My sources inform me the exact wording and timing were even a surprise to Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company (LMSSC) and Exelis, who are, of course, as incumbents officially excluded from responding.
In retrospect, however, perhaps it should not have been that big of a surprise. General William (Willie) Shelton (USAF), who when this column is first released will have only 48 hours remaining as the commander of Air Force Space Command, had been telegraphing for some time, in sometimes strident language, that he was not happy and something was in the works. He has been uncharacteristically publicly critical of both LMSSC and Exelis for schedule slips and overruns pertaining to GPS III.
Without a doubt, Lt. General Ellen Pawlikowski (USAF), the most recent former commander at SMC (Space and Missile System Center) where the GPS Directorate is located in Los Angeles, California, at LA AFB, let her misgivings concerning a single provider for the GPS III payload be known for some time. Earlier this year, referring to LMSSC, General Pawlikowski was quoted as saying “They know we are not happy — that we are disappointed at the delays we have seen, the technical issues that their subcontractor [Exelis] has had, and probably they are considering whether an alternative source could provide them a better opportunity…I think that Lockheed is doing the right things to figure out how do they best deliver the GPS III in the timelines that they’re expected to.”
In LMSSC’s defense, it was always aware of a possible schedule slip, as was the USAF — for more than two years a bevy of LMSSC engineers and senior managers have been putting in overtime at the Exelis facility in Clifton, New Jersey, to try and wrestle the wayward Mission Data Unit back on track. Many of them are still there, plugging away, including the indefatigable and always optimistic former LMSSC GPS III Program Manager and VP for Space Keoki Jackson.
The MDU is the beating heart of the payload for the GPS III SVs, and it has been in trouble for some time. So, although LMSSC and Exelis are late to need for the three LMSSC GPS III payloads awaiting a heartbeat in the City of Oz or the new LMSSC manufacturing facility in Deer Creek Canyon in Littleton, Colorado, it is not from want of extraordinary efforts to deliver the payloads on time, and those efforts continue today.
Lockheed Martin spokesman Chip Eschenfelder dropped me an email recently that stated: “All GPS III SV01 (Space or Satellite Vehicle Number One) Navigation payload components — including the Mission Data Unit — have successfully completed unit acceptance testing; these components have been integrated onto the payload panel; and the panel is now undergoing panel-level testing [at Exelis]. The SV01 Navigation Payload forecast delivery to Lockheed Martin is Fall 2014.”
As I write this, I have just received an email from Kristin Jones, the senior communicator for Geospatial Systems at Exelis. She states: “Delivery of the GPS III navigation payload to Lockheed Martin continues to progress following recent Mission Data Unit build and successful test activities. The GPS III navigation payload is an original, highly advanced system that brings new capabilities to the GPS constellation, including improved user accuracy and a more robust signal for contested environments. The new flexible design is also optimized to accommodate additional capabilities in the future. This system has now successfully completed testing and has been added to the payload panel. The integrated payload panel is now going into ambient testing. Also, all six of the navigation payload transmitters have successfully completed their ATP testing. To date, significant testing with flight-like engineering units and the SV01 flight hardware indicates that signal crosstalk variances have been addressed, and GPS III will meet all mission and quality requirements. Exelis is on track for a fall delivery to Lockheed Martin.”
The Farmers Almanac states: “In 2014, the autumnal equinox brings the fall season to the Northern Hemisphere on September 22 at 10:29 P.M. EDT. Let’s see, that is only a biblical 40 days and 40 nights from now, and according to both LMSSC and Exelis the MDU problems have been resolved, to the best of their knowledge to date. The MDU for GPS III SV01 is in the final portion of panel testing, and will undergo more rigorous testing, including thermal vacuum testing at the LMCO (Lockheed Martin Company) facility in Deer Creek this Fall. That is very positive news, and it sounds as though the MDU is back on track.
LMSSC has been involved with GPS for decades, and Exelis, formerly ITT, has been involved in producing all or some portion of almost every GPS payload for four decades, since the GPS program began. So why were there technological problems at this late date? I can only say that providing the Gold Standard for space-based PNT is a complicated business, and as the Europeans are learning the hard way with Galileo, slips are just part of the environment in spaceborne PNT platforms.
How Would It Work?
A subset of the official wording of the GPS III Sources Sought, which you can view in its entirety at Fed Biz Ops.gov goes like this:
SMC/GP is conducting market research to review the industrial base and determine whether viable alternate sources exist to the continued GPS III SV production on the current baseline by LMSSC. For every block of GPS satellites over the past 40 years, the primary risk has been the navigation payload. This market research seeks to determine if alternate sources can attain a production-ready configuration for a GPS III SV with an alternate navigation payload in time to allow the Production Ready Alternate Source to compete with LMSSC for up to 22 satellites.
For many, the key phrases are “product ready” and “compete.” This is not only, as many first thought, a Sources Sought searching for an alternate source for a GPS III MDU. It is that and much more. It is a Sources Sought for new competition. SMC is also looking for a full up GPS III production capability that is able to compete with LMSSC for up to 22 more GPS III SVs, and they want it at a FFP (firm fixed price). At this stage, some pundits might say it is a solution looking for a problem.
The bottom line is SMC is asking for companies to step up and produce a full-blown and fully compliant GPS III space vehicle, with NDS and all the associated payloads. This includes a validated, certified and integrated launch capability to compete with LMSSC for the next 22 GPS III SVs, and even though it is not specifically mentioned, competitors could find themselves competing against the United Launch Alliance with launch services from SpaceX, who bill themselves as the world’s fastest-growing launch provider. Who are the competitors? Can you say Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and General Dynamics? Because these are the usual suspects, and all conspiracy theories aside, it appears the government does not want LMSSC to have a monopoly on GPS, and the Exelis MDU worries have given them…well, let’s just say, have justifiably fed that fear. The GPS III Sources Sought is just one result.
Results
So, just what were the results of the GPS III Sources Sought? I could easily say your guess is as good as mine, but I do have my sources, and they tell me on the one hand SMC heard from the usual suspects, and now you know who they are, about what they expected to hear, but then again they also heard from a couple of surprise (only to SMC) companies. Both have significant space capabilities, but have in one case not played in the GPS arena in some time (several decades), and in another case, a well known company may be looking for a way to increase their GPS role.
I also heard that few of the submittals were compliant or met all of the required criteria, and that should definitely not have come as a surprise to SMC. Consider they are asking companies with space capabilities to commit to designing an MDU from scratch — and indeed it may need to be an advanced MDU for new capabilities that will work with the current GPS III LMSSC interface. Those specifications are not exactly common knowledge, certainly not for a Sources Sought. SMC is asking for a full-up compliant system, and only gave companies two weeks to think about it.
Going back to my original premise: How should these companies have responded? Again, Marketing 101 — hopefully they said, “Sure, we can do that,” submitted the required paperwork, and then started scrambling to put a team together and figure out how they can produce and compete. And competing against the incumbents, especially when they are LMSSC and Exelis, is no easy task. Hopefully past performance still matters.
The 2014 Lamborghini Gallardo (Wikimedia Commons).
Still the disconcerting, curious and, according to some space companies, the giggle factor, concerns the scope of this would-be proposal. LMSSC has three almost-complete (missing only one crucial part) GPS III space vehicles waiting for a fully tested and certified MDU. Every other aspect of the GPS III program is on track and has been tested.
This is analagous to Sant’Agata Bolognese, a small comune in the province of Bologna, which just happens to be the home of Lamborghini, complaining that it has three brand-new Lamborghinis waiting to be delivered, if only Audi would ship the engines. One of the reasons I like this analogy is that it happened, it works, and I love exotic sports cars. The other reason is that it is easy to see the problem is the engine, not the Lamborghini, which remains as exotic and flamboyant as it has always been. Lamborghini is only going to fix the actual problem, a tardy engine delivery. They are certainly not going to scrap everything and fund competitors to build a new Lamborghini from the ground up.
Or closer to home, consider the F-35 engine issue. The USAF did not ask for companies to design a new F-35 just because it needed an alternate engine. It just contracted for another engine supplier — a simple solution to a complex problem. Viola! Bob’s you uncle!
The F-35C Lightning II test aircraft CF-1 performs a flight test (photo by Andy Wolfe, courtesy of the U.S. Navy).
The U.S. government, DoD, USAF, Air Force Space Command, and SMC is putting forward the proposition that it will pay for another company or companies to compete with a proven system that works, and works well. LMSSC GPS IIRs and IIRMs are on orbit today and preforming well past their programmed life. LMSSC knows how to build the best GPS satellites in the world today. Like Lamborghini and the USAF, LMSSC is just waiting on a subcontractor to supply the GPS III engine or MDU.
So regardless of the purpose or multiple purposes of the GPS III Sources Sought, and whether you think it is an overreaction or not, in the end it opens the door to numerous potential players in the GPS space arena. To paraphrase that paragon of wisdom, Martha Stewart, “Competition is a good thing,” even if you have to pay for it.
Until next time, happy navigating, and remember GPS is brought to you free of charge by the United States Air Force.
“The Advisory Council is comprised of foundation members selected because of their unique expertise, background and reputations within the international navigation and timing community,” said Dana Goward, president of the foundation.
While the council will advise the foundation on an on-going basis, in-person meetings will be scheduled to coincide with those of the U.S. National PNT Advisory Board.
The RNT Foundation Advisory Council membership includes Donald Jewel, GPS World Defense Editor and United States representative; Chuck Schue, also from the U.S.; Refaat Rashad from Egypt; David Last from the United Kingdom; and Krzysztof Czaplewski from Poland.
Mitre’s new Time Anomaly Detection Appliqué (TADA) protects modern digital systems from spoofing attacks that can corrupt time source signals.
Successful spoofing attacks could result in navigational systems going haywire and grounding airplanes, jumbling of buying and selling orders, a shutdown of the stock market, or power-grid failures. Infrastructure and defense systems often rely on GPS’s unencrypted position, navigation, and timing (PNT) signal as their source of accurate time, accurate to about 14 nanoseconds.
The TADA system detects and, for certain users, mitigates timing attacks. “Almost every system has a need for precise and accurate time,” said Darrow Leibner, the Mitre TADA project lead. “Because GPS is accurate and ubiquitous, users have gotten away from implementing other time-keeping methods. That’s where the potential vulnerability comes in.”
TADA is designed to provide a cost-effective, reliable, and easy-to-use method for protecting GPS receivers against spoofing attacks. The system defends against spoofing by continuously comparing a trusted input, such as a known frequency or location, with those provided by the GPS receiver. When a difference between these two inputs is detected, TADA alerts the user to the suspected PNT anomaly.
For a trusted input, TADA uses an atomic clock frequency. For each second measured by the incoming GPS timing signal, TADA counts the number of frequency cycles generated by a Cesium clock. If the incoming GPS signal is valid, TADA will count exactly the expected number of Cesium frequency cycles. If TADA measures a higher or lower number of timing signals than expected, it will display the difference. A difference outside the acceptable margin of error will prompt TADA to alert its users that the GPS timing signal is possibly being spoofed.
In the same way it uses a trusted time source, TADA can also use a known location to detect a spoofing attack. To do this, the user inputs the location of a GPS receiver antenna into TADA. TADA monitors the reported position for any changes. Any reported change of the stationary location would most likely be due to spoofing attack and prompt an alert to the user. Once alerted by TADA to a spoofing attack, users can quickly switch to existing backup systems.
“This is not the invention of the lightbulb,” Leibner said. “Rather, it’s a clever use of existing technologies packaged in such a way that users obtain a greatly increased level of protection for a minimum of investment. None of the TADA components on their own are brilliant. But as one manufacturer said after seeing a detailed description of TADA, ‘It’s brilliantly simplistic.’”
The next stage in TADA’s development is to provide it with the capability to not only detect spoofing attacks, but to mitigate its effects and pinpoint their origin. Mitre will also continue to advocate that to bolster the nation’s infrastructure defenses against spoofing, TADA-like monitoring techniques be included within commercial product design.
Chemring Technology Solutions has developed miniaturized GPS anti-jamming technology it has dubbed GINCAN. GINCAN is designed to combat illegal GPS jammers and is based on the adaptive antenna concept used by military systems. GINCAN has a chip footprint of six millimeters squared.
GINCAN’s reduced size and weight will significantly cut power usage and cost, the company said, making it ideal for combatting the widespread problem of low-powered GPS jamming. GINCAN can be integrated into a range of applications, including in-vehicle satellite navigation systems and cellular technology, and can be used for the protection of the critical infrastructures which rely on GPS to provide positioning and timing.
GPS jammers have already been developed to interfere with the European Union’s Galileo system, which will provide European satellite navigation independently from the Russian, USA and Chinese systems by 2019. Chemring Technology Solutions, based in Romsey, England, has anticipated this problem and its GPS anti-jamming technology will also support systems using Galileo.
Once the preserve of the military, there is now an increasing demand for GPS protection in the civilian market as illegal GPS jamming equipment becomes widely available on the Internet. The £1.5 million government-funded Sentinel project, designed to measure GPS jamming on UK roads, recorded more than 60 individual jamming incidents across six months at a single location. Such attacks could seriously impact industries, including maritime, aerospace, the emergency services and even stock market trading.
“Many years of developing GPS protection technology for the military has enabled our research and development team to miniaturize anti-jamming technology,” said Martin Ward, product manager, Chemring Technology Solutions. “GINCAN can now be easily integrated in to a range of applications to provide effective protection against jamming devices.
“As we become increasingly reliant on GPS technology, and low-cost jammers are proliferating, so a potential time bomb is being created. Chemring Technology Solutions is now able to offer the answer to this problem with jammer protection at a reduced size, weight, power and cost footprint.”
GINCAN is an export controlled product and subject to UK export restrictions.
Several pleasant surprises popped up at this year’s Institute of Navigation’s Joint Navigation Conference (ION JNC) in Orlando, Florida, and the best by far centered on the presenters and the attendees. In a change from recent years due to budget restrictions, better known as sequescastration, this year two senior Air Force generals attended and actively participated in several events.
General (S) John Hyten – Vice Commander AFSPC – Courtesy of the USAF
General (S) John E. Hyten (USAF), currently the Vice and soon to be the Commander of USAF Space Command (AFSPC), participated in two days of ION JNC and was featured as the keynote speaker on the second day of the plenary session. As a senior steward of the Global Positioning System, indeed for all USAF Space Systems, General Hyten has a special place in his heart for GPS, having served as the Commander, 50th Space Wing, Schriever AFB in Colorado, the home of GPS.
The 2nd Space Operations Squadron is a component of the 50th Operations Group, 50th Space Wing, Schriever AFB, CO. The squadron was activated Jan. 30, 1992.
Conference attendees were pleasantly surprised with the access they had to General Hyten as he toured exhibits and joined fellow attendees for lunch, presentations, and discussions in the hallways. General Hyten made it clear that he was there to interact with ION JNC attendees and welcomed everyone to engage him in conversation. A rare invitation from a very busy general officer with huge responsibilities — and an invitation that many attendees clearly took to heart, as General Hyten was continually engaged in discussions during his two-day stay.
In his plenary presentation, General Hyten addressed GPS and the general lack of knowledge in the public today concerning the origins of the system. Hint — the answer is the United States Air Force. More on that later.
Major General (USAF) Robert Wheeler
Major General Robert Wheeler (call sign Wheels) also attended ION JNC this year to speak during the classified day on June 19 and to participate as an ad hoc member of the always-popular War Fighter Crosstalk Panel. General Wheeler currently serves on the staff of the Secretary of Defense (SECDEF) as Deputy Chief Information Officer for Command, Control, Communications and Computers (C4) and Information Infrastructure Capabilities (DCIO for C4IIC). General Wheeler is a command pilot with more than 5,000 hours in multiple aircraft, including the B-2 bomber in which he saw combat time over theater.
It was obvious from his initial comments in the classified sessions that General Wheeler is a warrior and staunch supporter of GPS and all things PNT-related. As much as I would like to relate some of his more pithy remarks, they were made in a classified environment, so sharing them is impossible in this venue. However, suffice it to say the General’s comments were well received by the war fighters who attended as well as the classified session attendees, which included many of our closest international allies.
The comment was made several times in my hearing that “We sure hope General Hyten and General Wheeler are invited back again next year.”
If all goes according to plan, General Hyten will be a four star and a MAJCOM Commander in just a few weeks. If he thought he was busy before . . .
Now let’s utilize that sage observation as a segue to General Hyten’s Plenary remarks at this years ION JNC. Having known John Hyten for over 20 years it has always been my experience that he does things just a bit differently – he hears a slightly different drumbeat and this year’s plenary speech was certainly no exception. Right from the start this speech was a bit different. General Hyten warned his audience he was going to praise them for their hard work and then gently admonish them but in a good way. With that opening statement he certainly had everyone’s attention. General Hyten asked for a show of hands from those attendees who knew that GPS originated with the USAF, the 50th Space Wing at Schriever AFB and particularly the 2SOPS (2nd Space Operations Squadron).
2SOPS operators on the GPS Operations Floor at Schriever AFB, CO
In the GPS/PNT-savvy audience Gen Hyten was addressing, literally every hand went up, and that was evidently what he hoped to see. The response was not a surprise to anyone, however the general went on to make the point that if he went out into the general population in the Renaissance Hotel at SeaWorld he would be lucky to find one in ten who even knew what GPS stood for, and that it came from space, and almost none would know that it was, is, and will for the foreseeable future always be provided free of charge to global users courtesy of the USAF.
GPS has been provided by the USAF free of charge for global users ever since President Ronald Reagan declared it so via a Presidential Decision Directive issued in 1988 shortly after the Soviet military shot down a Korean Air airliner (Flight 007) that had strayed off course and into Soviet Airspace due to a navigation error.
Ironically, General Hyten made the point that if the U.S. Government charged for use of the GPS signals, even at a nickel (5 cents) per user per device per year, it would pay for itself, and everyone would know that the USAF provided the service on behalf of the U.S. Government.
However, since it is free, ubiquitous, and considered almost a utility today, everyone around the world just assumes it will always be there and they don’t think about how or why the signals are provided. GPS is just always there.
GPS Orbitology 101- Courtesy of the USAF
General Hyten went on to make several cogent points concerning current and future use of GPS and other PNT assets. At the same time he warned us that there are those in the Pentagon [Obviously shortsighted, my comment, not the general’s.— DJ] who erroneously question why we still need GPS today. They myopically see it as an antiquated, compromised system. When in fact GPS and multi-GNSS PNT systems are on the cutting edge of technology.
The general made the comparison with WWII bombers that were being shot down at an alarming rate until the War Department (circa 1943) started the practice ofusing fighter escorts to help them fight through and return home safely. The analogy applies to GPS, which even today is being purposefully and at times maliciously attacked by spoofers and jammers.
Augmentations
Fortunately there are numerous actions that can and are being taken to secure GPS as a critical global service — fighter escorts if you will — that will not only help GPS maintain its preeminent Gold Standard position in the world of global PNT, but allow the system to grow and mature, even flourish, with additional high tech capabilities such as CNAV and MNAV (new civilian and military navigation messages).
Indeed the general stated that we have just begun to explore all the transformational capabilities being added to our GPS/PNT and multi-GNSS arsenal with the addition of L1-L2 M-Code (military code) and L2-L5 CNAV signals.
Of additional interest are space-based augmentations (SBAS) such as WAAS (Wide Area Augmentation System) and EGNOS (European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service) as well as independent regional terrestrial augmentations and backups such as E- and D-LORAN (long range navigation), which today have demonstrated a time stability of 1×10(-12) and a position accuracy of 5-10 meters, an order of magnitude better than LORAN C’s 50-1,000 meters.
General Hyten went on to warn the commercial PNT vendors and government program managers in the 400+ audience that they must cease placing commercial GPS receivers in critical government systems that support the war fighters, government users, and our critical national infrastructure. Indeed he said this is why we have SAASM (Selective Availability Anti-Spoofing Module) and M-Code: to help secure these critical systems against interference, jamming and spoofing, intentional or otherwise. He also pleaded with industry manufacturers and vendors of PNT devices to please build their devices in strict adherence to the U.S. government;s ICD process. While the general declined to mention specific cases or companies, most in the room were aware of the ramifications of ICD non-compliance, from usefulness, mission and financial perspectives.
The general cited several known cases where, due to noncompliance, several systems just never did work well or consistently in a war zone. He said he knew of cases where “…the PNT systems worked fine in Yuma, Arizona but failed to work in Afghanistan. Please do not put commercial systems in critical military equipment.”
Pseudolites
Pseudolites are another area where the general has concerns. This is of course a hotly debated spectrum issue. Whereas we in the United States have been fighting highly-publicized spectrum battles, attempting to preserve the sanctity of the GPS spectrum globally, the Europeans are on the verge of approving pseudolite implementations all over the European continent that could seriously degrade GPS/PNT/Galileo signal reception and make PNT systems unusable or at least undependable in some critical areas, especially around the approaches to airports. Although on the surface pseudolites may seem like a good solution, I always remember what Dr. Bradford Parkinson is fond of saying: “An improperly implemented pseudolite is just another name for a potential GPS or PNT jammer.”
The Unofficial Test
After General Hyten’s comments, I decided to put his theory to the test. Just how many people know GPS is provided free to the world courtesy of the United States Air Force?
As someone who has been working GPS issues since 1975, I find it hard to believe that the American public is so uninformed about a system that is so critical to their everyday existence, because as most of you know, GPS is pervasive in almost all of our critical and not-so-critical national infrastructure. Indeed stealth GPS chips and receivers are embedded in so many devices today that it would be easier to name the devices that don’t use GPS. So I took the General at his word and set out to conduct my own mini-survey.
However, before I even had a chance to think much about what I would ask, I stepped into an elevator at the Sea World Renaissance Hotel where the ION JNC was taking place and found myself face to face with an elevator full of attendees from a major medical convention in the same hotel. They saw the ION JNC patch on my black golf shirt and asked me about it.
I told them and then asked what they knew about GPS. As in, did they know where the GPS signals came from and who provided them? Lots of answers were given and none of them remotely correct.
Frankly I was appalled, and before they exited the elevator I made sure they knew that GPS signals came from space and were provided totally free by the USAF. Mission accomplished. But not so fast; unfortunately the rest of my day and ad hoc surveys went about the same way. Some actually knew that GPS signals were free, some knew or thought they were provided by the government but had not a clue what agency or service.
Most thought they were radio signals from ground transmitters and were provided by the GPS equipment manufacturers. After asking more than 100 people where GPS signals originated and who provided them, I received exactly two correct answers, from wives whose husbands had recently served in the military in theater.
In my informal survey, 2% (two percent) of the respondents knew the right answers — and they had a military background. None of the true civilians had a clue. It was appalling and discouraging! Apparently General Hyten has done his homework and his point is well taken.
We need to get the word out that GPS is totally free, provided to the world by the United States Air Force. A simple but important message. Simple yes, and certainly discouraging at this specific venue, as this is a major part of the mission of ION and JNC — educating the world about the capabilities of GPS. Now I guess we need to emphasize the basics, just as GPS acquisition has reverted to a “back to a basics” approach. I agree with General Hyten that we (all those of us who care about GPS and all that it enables) need to do the same: get out the basic message every chance we get. Join me, won’t you, in getting that simple message across?
The next ION symposium, ION GNSS+ 2014 will take place September 8-12, 2014 at the Tampa Convention Center in Tampa, Florida. I hope to see you there.
Thanks
In closing I tip my hat to Lisa Beaty, the Executive Director of ION, and her entire team especially the new Military Division headed by my good friend and Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) colleague Jim Doherty. Jim arranged the classified Cross Talk Military Panel this year, which was the hit of the show, as it has been under Jim’s leadership for the past several years. Jim stepped down this year as the Military Division Chair during the ION JNC symposium, and he will be sorely missed, although I suspect he will still be involved in some fashion.
The bottom line is that the ION symposia just keep getting better every year. The venues and the host hotels are first class, the food is excellent, and most of all the speakers and papers presented are scrubbed to the point that you really only get the cream of the crop. Unfortunately, you can’t say that about every GPS/PNT symposium today.
This year the exhibitors were in a large area that allowed everyone more room, and it made for a much more relaxed atmosphere in the exhibit area. I found that I spent a great deal more time with the exhibitors this year than in years past, and what I discovered there will be the subject of several future columns.
Until next time, happy navigating and remember, GPS comes to you courtesy of the United States Air Force.
Aim High!
What’s Don Reading?
Beyond Horizons – A Half Century of Air Force Space Leadership
David N. Spires, PhD – Professor Emeritus University of Colorado, Boulder, CO.
Reading good history volumes is one of my favorite pass times and when it comes to an early history of Air Force Space there is none better than Beyond Horizons.
Dr. Spires does an excellent job of setting the stage and explaining exactly how Air Force Space Command came into existence and why it was so sorely needed. The current volume covers the US Air Force and Air Force Space from its very beginnings at the end of WWII; think Dr. Theodore von Karman (Toward New Horizons) and General of the Army (Five-star) H.H. Arnold.
General Arnold actually flew a Wright Flyer back in 1911 and would have retired as a 5-star Army General but on May 7, 1949, Public Law 58-81 changed the designation of Arnold’s final rank and grade to that of General of the Air Force, and he remains the only person to have held the rank. He is also the only person to hold five-star rank in two U.S. military services. General Arnold was instrumental in funding and authorizing research conducted by von Karman, and von Karman was instrumental in research that eventually led to an Air Force and an Air Force Space Command. It is all here in this fascinating book which is edited by longtime friends and colleagues George W. Bradley III (PhD) and Rick W. Sturdevant (PhD), who serve today as the Chief and Deputy Historians respectively at Air Force Space Command.
The only pastime better than reading, this book is talking about it with the author personally, who was also a career Air Force Officer, which I have had the pleasure of doing briefly, on several occasions, and the conversations were fascinating. David is just full of interesting facts and stories concerning Air Force Space. I am convinced that if he were to commit them all to paper, there would be several volumes. I hope you enjoy this fascinating Air Force Space history.
Northrop Grumman and Boeing have responded to a U.S. Air Force call for contractors interested in building a follow-on set of GPS III satellites, according to a report in Space News.
Lockheed Martin is under contract to deliver the first eight GPS III satellites, but the award for up to 22 further IIIs remains open. Difficulties with the payload for the first batch of satellites mean that although the Lockheed has three space vehicles ready, it has no signal payload to put aboard them. Subcontractor Exelis is at work on that. Delivery delays have prompted the Air Force to look about for alternatives.
Lockheed Martin itself began investigating options for its supply line last year.
Air Force “Sources Sought” Call
The U.S. Air Force issued an official “Sources sought” notice in June on a production-ready GPS space vehicle, equipped with an alternate payload, for consideration alongside the Lockheed Martin-built GPS III vehicle. The first phase of the contract would include two firm-fixed price contracts worth $100–$200 million to demonstrate a competitor to GPS III.
Key requirements are that the satellite must offer a payload alternative to that built by Exelis; the satellite must be ready to launch by 2023; and the production line must turn out two to three new satellites per year.
The second phase features a competition between Lockheed Martin and one or more other companies for as many as 22 satellites. A final contract award would be made in 2017 or 2018.
Current GPS III contractor Lockheed Martin reportedly sent an engineering team to help Exelis expedite a resolution of payload holdups, while simultaneously investigating a switch to other suppliers, beginning with the ninth satellite in the GPS 3 series. Lockheed Martin says five companies responded to its solicitation last year.
Air Force Gives Free Hand. Gen. Ellen Pawlikowski, head of the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC), told the national Space Symposium in Colorado in June, “Obviously we want a GPS III that does what its supposed to do, delivered on time, and it’s up to Lockheed to manage its subcontractors. My view is if Lockheed is not happy with their subcontractors nav payload, and they believe that they can get a lower risk approach to delivering a nav payload by seeking a secondary source for that, then that’s clearly a decision for them to make.
“They [Lockheed ] know we are disappointed at the delays that we have seen, the technical issues that their subcontractor has had, and probably they are considering whether an alternative source could provide them a better opportunity.“
Lockheed Martin spokesman Chip Eschenfelder issued a statement: “Exelis has made good progress on the first GPS III space vehicle, SV01 navigation payload. All GPS III SV01 navigation payload components have successfully completed unit acceptance and environmental testing, with the exception of one component, the mission data unit.
“To date, significant MDU hardware testing indicates signal cross talk issues are resolved. The SV01 navigation payload forecast delivery to Lockheed Martin is fall 2014.”
Boeing built the platform and major payload components for the GPS IIF satellites and is one of three companies that received contracts in January 2013 to study how to improve the accuracy, coverage, and efficiency of GPS using smaller satellites.
Northrop Grumman Aerospace of Redondo Beach, California, has already delivered deployable antenna sets to Lockheed Martin for the first six GPS III satellites. The division has delivered more than 1,000 antennas for previous generations of GPS spacecraft, Northrop Grumman said.
The Federal Communications Commission plans to issue the largest fine in its history against C.T.S. Technology Co., Limited, a Chinese electronics manufacturer and online retailer, for allegedly marketing 285 models of signal jamming devices to U.S. consumers for more than two years.
The FCC applied the maximum fine allowed to each jammer model allegedly marketed by C.T.S., resulting in a planned fine of $34,912,500.
“All companies, whether domestic or foreign, are banned from marketing illegal jammers in the U.S.,” said Travis LeBlanc, Acting Chief of the Enforcement Bureau. “Signal jammers present a direct danger to public safety, potentially blocking the communications of first responders. Operating a jammer is also illegal, and consumers who do so face significant civil and criminal penalties.”
C.T.S. operates a website that markets consumer electronics to individuals in the United States, where it allegedly misled U.S. consumers by falsely claiming that certain signal jammers were approved by the FCC. In fact, the use of such devices by U.S. consumers is illegal under any circumstance. C.T.S. also sold 10 high-powered signal jammers to undercover FCC personnel.
The FCC also is ordering C.T.S. to cease marketing illegal signal jammers to U.S. consumers and provide information to the FCC about any persons and entities in the United Sates that purchased its devices.
Signal jammers are radio frequency transmitters that intentionally block, jam, or interfere with authorized communications, such as cellphone calls, GPS systems, Wi-Fi networks, and first responder communications. It is a violation of federal law to market, sell, import, or use a signal jammer in the United States and its territories, except in very limited circumstances involving federal law enforcement.
The FCC is asking people to report the sale or use of an illegal jammer by contacting the FCC Enforcement Bureau through the FCC online complaint portal, or by calling 1-888-CALL-FCC (or 1-888-225-5322). To voluntarily relinquish a signal jammer, e-mail [email protected]. Additional information, including the FCC Consumer Alert on the jamming prohibitions and the FCC Enforcement Advisory to retailers regarding the marketing of illegal signal jammers, is available at www.fcc.gov/jammers.
KVH Industries has introduced TACNAV 3D, a highly accurate inertial navigation system designed for battlefield vehicles, at Eurosatory 2014, an international defense and security industry trade show in Paris, France.
The TACNAV 3D system is the latest product in KVH’s TACNAV line of tactical navigation systems, and will be on display in the KVH booth (Stand J531, Hall 6) at Eurosatory through June 20.
The fiber-optic gyro-based TACNAV 3D inertial navigation system provides full three-dimensional navigation and an embedded GNSS. Its modular tactical design and flexible architecture allow it to function as either a standalone inertial navigation solution or as the core of an expandable, multi-functional battlefield management system. It is designed to provide navigation for light armored vehicles, both wheeled and tracked, medium and heavy combat vehicles, and main battle tanks.
The TACNAV 3D system is fitted with an Iridium transceiver to transmit and receive vehicle position, waypoint, and target location to or from a command center or other vehicles, and can receive messages from the battlefield management system to pass on to the command center via the Iridium short duration burst message function. TACNAV 3D can also receive and transmit Ethernet and CANbus signals, and RS-422.
“For military vehicles operating on the modern digital battlefield, this completely modular package is a vital component for effective battlefield management,” said Dan Conway, KVH executive vice president for Guidance & Stabilization sales. “It is affordable, lightweight, and easy to integrate with any number of existing vehicles, both turreted and non-turreted. With a built-in communications option, TACNAV 3D is designed for short duration burst messaging, which can make a life or death difference to a soldier.”
TACNAV 3D builds upon the success of KVH’s TACNAV family of products, and incorporates the 1750 IMU, which combines 3 axes of KVH’s compact high accuracy DSP-1750 fiber optic gyro (FOG), with three axes of high-performance MEMS accelerometers. The TACNAV 3D system is designed to provide extremely accurate heading, dead reckoning, navigation, orientation, and 100% situational awareness in GNSS-denied environments.