The UK Ministry of Defence has awarded a £6 million contract to Team Elaris, a QinetiQ-led consortium, to develop a deployable concept for enhanced Long-Range Navigation (eLoran) as a GPS-independent positioning, navigation, and timing alternative for military operations in contested environments.
The two-year effort falls under the Urgent Compass programme.
Team Elaris comprises QinetiQ, UrsaNav, Roke, and GMV — bringing together U.S. and European PNT expertise across deployable and fixed eLoran architectures. Work completed under the programme will inform future demonstration, production, and deployment packages. The contract extends QinetiQ’s existing engagement with the MoD on assured PNT, which also includes the Robust Global Navigation System programme — a separate component of the UK’s broader resilient PNT strategy.
The MoD framed the award around the growing threat of GNSS jamming and spoofing in battlefield environments, noting that a compromised satellite navigation signal can result in misdirected troop movements or incorrectly guided munitions. Urgent Compass is specifically designed to explore eLoran solutions that can be rapidly deployed to contested locations worldwide.
eLoran — a modernized, high-accuracy evolution of the Cold War-era Loran-C system — operates on low-frequency terrestrial signals that are significantly more difficult to jam or spoof than GNSS, and can provide independent timing and positioning when satellite access is denied or degraded.
