In part one of this series, we looked at how space contributes to modern warfare. You can read that piece here A Day Without Space – Part 1
The U.S. military is drunk on GPS. GPS has been so good, so cheap, and so reliable for so long that we treat it like gravity. It’s always there. It’s too boring to think about. Trust us, it works. As a company that specializes in PNT devices, we know that people just accept that GPS is going to be there. GPS has changed and connected the world. It provides a security and connective layer around global transportation, financial transactions, and helps to keep the internet running.
A more complete list of the areas of our economy and national infrastructure that are dependent on PNT is at: https://www.cisa.gov/resources-tools/resources/understanding-vulnerabilities-pnt-fact-sheet
Despite the ubiquity, it is fragile. GPS signals arrive at Earth with less power than the light from a household bulb thousands of kilometers away. They are astonishingly easy to jam and spoof. The constellation itself is robust from a space perspective, dozens of satellites in medium orbit, with multiple in view anywhere on Earth at any given time, but the signal environment is a knife-edge. This area is increasingly contested. We have multiple examples of adversaries using GPS disruption to push on that knife-edge.
- In March 2024, widespread GPS jamming over Eastern Europe affected more than 1,600 aircraft in two days.
- Thousands of aircraft flying near conflict zones have seen navigation disrupted daily by jamming and spoofing around Ukraine and the Middle East.
- GPS jamming contributed to the 2024 Christmas Day crash of an Azerbaijan Airlines flight, killing 38 people.
- U.S. manufactured JDAMs, HIMARS, and GPS guided artillery have struggled against Russian jamming in Ukraine.
- In the Black Sea, a Russian spoofing platform on an oil rig misled aircraft and drones until Ukraine destroyed it in 2024.
Some of these are clearly shaping operations. They are forms of hybrid warfare against US and US allies that seek to show Russia’s ability to encroach on Europe. However, the vulnerability of our weapons systems should give a cause for concern. Those weaknesses coupled with the PRC and Russia’s increasing ability to deliberately attack satellites with kinetic kill vehicles, co-orbital stalkers, cyber intrusions into ground stations, and “a day without space” moves from niche scenario to first-echelon target set.
Some would say that an assault on U.S. satellites would be an act of war. But, is the U.S. going to go to war over its satellites? Maybe. That is a theory that would need to be tested. After all, the saying is “don’t touch the boats,” not “don’t touch the satellites.”
It is useful to think about not only what the U.S. response would be, but how it would coordinate it. The U.S. has built a military based on precision, with the ability to communicate on demand across the world. That system is predicated on the abilities U.S. satellites provide. We built a force whose concept of mass, precision, and tempo assumes always-on, always-accurate PNT and overhead ISR. Mass without time/position truth decays into noise. A drunk force doesn’t realize it’s staggering until it hits the curb.
