Attacks against GPS systems persist in the Baltic Sea region, which includes Germany, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
Inputs that matter: Tens of thousands of planes flying in the region have reported problems with their navigation systems in recent months amid widespread jamming attacks, which can make GPS inoperable.
- As the attacks have grown, Russia has increasingly been blamed, with open-source researchers tracking the source to Russian regions such as Kaliningrad.
- The jamming in the Baltic region, first spotted in early 2022, is not the biggest concern.
- Instead, signal spoofing is the greatest threat.
- DefenseNews reports that Russia, China, India, the United States, and several major world powers have developed technology to disrupt space signals.
The opportunity: "It cannot be ruled out that this jamming is a form of hybrid warfare to create uncertainty and unrest," Jimmie Adamsson, the chief of public affairs for the Swedish Navy, tells WIRED.
- Earlier this month, more than 15,000 planes had their locations spoofed to Beirut Airport, according to data Figuet shared with WIRED.
- The data shows that more than 10,000 were spoofed to Cairo Airport, while more than 2,000 had their locations shown in Yaroslavl, Russia.
- A separate analysis from geospatial intelligence company Geollect shared with WIRED shows that on April 16, around 55 ships broadcast their location over the main runway at Simferopol International Airport in Crimea, Ukraine.
Zoom in: The New York Times reports, "The United States and China are locked in a new race, in space and on Earth, over a fundamental resource: time itself. And the United States is losing."
- "Global positioning satellites serve as clocks in the sky, and their signals have become fundamental to the global economy."
- "But those services are increasingly vulnerable as space is rapidly militarized and satellite signals are attacked on Earth."
- "Russia, China, India, and the United States have tested anti-satellite missiles, and several major world powers have developed technology meant to disrupt signals in space."
Between the lines: According to SpaceNews, "While GPS was once the undisputed king of satnav, it now has a growing list of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) competitors – from China's BeiDou to the European Union's Galileo, Russia's GLONASS and even India's regional system, NavIC."
- The National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Advisory Board (PNTAB) warned that "GPS's capabilities are now substantially inferior to those of China's BeiDou."
- It urged the U.S. to regain PNT leadership over the next decade.
- While China and the EU have been investing heavily in their GNSS systems, the U.S. military is only making modest improvements to GPS.
Follow the money: The U.S. is concerned that China could use BeiDou as a platform for conducting espionage and other malicious activities inside these countries.
- In March, Reuters reported that the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) in 2021 awarded SpaceX a $1.8 billion contract for the classified project, a planned network of hundreds of satellites.
- While this network will be separate from SpaceX's Starlink Internet constellation, the National Reconnaissance Office contract is leveraging SpaceX's capability to put many Starlink satellites into orbit with its existing manufacturing facilities and the reusable Falcon 9 rocket.
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