{"id":26227,"date":"2020-08-19T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-19T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/c4isrnet\/uncategorized\/2020\/08\/19\/deploying-a-backup-to-gps-will-protect-the-us-and-spur-innovation\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T18:20:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T18:20:14","slug":"deploying-a-backup-to-gps-will-protect-the-us-and-spur-innovation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/c4isrnet\/opinion\/2020\/08\/19\/deploying-a-backup-to-gps-will-protect-the-us-and-spur-innovation\/","title":{"rendered":"Deploying a backup to GPS will protect the US and spur innovation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Global Positioning System underpins almost every aspect of modern life. This invisible utility, beamed to us by a constellation of 32 satellites zipping around Earth 12,550 miles overhead, does much more than give us directions to the nearest pizza place. GPS also allows sectors like transportation, telecoms, emergency services, finance and more to function with breathtaking speed and efficiency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this space-age marvel has a low-tech Achilles\u2019 heel that makes it vulnerable to natural and human-directed disruptions that could cripple key industries and businesses, threaten lives, and cost billions of dollars. The signal from a GPS satellite is unimaginably faint. Detecting it is like being in New York and seeing a 50-watt lightbulb in Perth, Australia. That makes GPS susceptible to many kinds of interference, including tall buildings, solar activity and use of adjacent electromagnetic spectrums, as has been proposed under the rollout of 5G telecommunications services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GPS can also be easily jammed and spoofed. Such incidents are dramatically on the rise<\/a> in recent years and are sometimes carried out by our geopolitical rivals. For instance, Russian and Chinese forces have disrupted U.S. military and commercial tanker operations in the Black Sea, South China Sea and elsewhere. What\u2019s more, on July 23, U.S. Space Command revealed<\/a> that it has evidence that Russia conducted a test of a new anti-satellite weapon. Should satellites be damaged or degraded, recovery would involve building and launching new ones \u2014 you can\u2019t just walk up to them and make repairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cost of failure could be astronomical. GPS is directly tied to at least $1.5 trillion of economic activity, and indirectly to another $6 trillion. Fifteen of the 16 sectors of infrastructure the Department of Homeland Security designates<\/a> as \u201ccritical\u201d depend on GPS, and 13 would simply fail without it. Airliners and ships would lose precise navigational capabilities. Traffic lights would malfunction. Banks and financial markets would grind to a halt. The COVID-19 pandemic only underscores the urgency, with first responder networks critically reliant on GPS.<\/p>\n\n\n\t