Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded Northrop Grumman a $13.3 million contract Phase 2 of the Blackjack program to “advance its Position, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) payload through emulation and Critical Design Review, and build PNT payload units destined for space flight.”
By Inside GNSS
The basis of all precision positioning and navigation is precision timing. Timing comes first. GPS Time is defined on the basis of a set of atomic clocks orbiting aboard the satellites and on the ground in monitoring stations; similarly for the other GNSS systems.
By Inside GNSS
Two recent reports have underscored the threats to the GPS system from space-capable adversaries. Both the Worldwide Threat Assessment, released Jan. 30 by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and theDefense Intelligence Agency’s newly released Challenges to Security in Spacedetail the potential for China, Russia and others to damage the constellation or disrupt its signals.
With worries mounting about these risks, and the more mundane but still harmful prospect of regional jamming or spoofing, organizations throughout the U.S. government are working on ways to address vulnerabilities and find ways to operate without GPS.
By Dee Ann Divis
