The US military has asked for $90 million of extra funding to increase the signal strength of its satellite Global Positioning System (GPS). The Department of Defense says this would protect it from atmospheric interference and deliberate jamming.
Whether the funds will be awarded will be decided early in 2003. The money would be used to modify up to 20 new satellites, the first of which would launch in 2004. The new satellites would be fully operational by 2006.
Each satellite would be fitted with more powerful radio transmitters to boost the GPS signal to eight times that currently used. This would provide greater accuracy by reducing atmospheric interference. It would also make it more difficult for an adversary to jam the signal to disorientate troops on the ground or throw smart weapons off course.
“Effective jammers would have to increase in size and power, and they would have to employ a more complicated jamming scenario,” says Department of Defense spokesman Raymond Swider.
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Poke in the eye
But, according to one expert, the signal boost may reflect a US determination not to be outdone by Galileo, Europe’s recently approved civilian satellite navigation system.
“It would be a poke in the eye for Galileo, which is supposed to have stronger signal strength,” says David Broughton, director of the Royal Institute of Navigation in the UK.
Broughton adds that conflict between GPS and Galileo may not result in the best service. He will argue at a forthcoming Global Navigation Satellite Systems conference in Copenhagen that the two systems could be made compatible.
GPS is freely available to anyone with a receiver but the US military can, if desired, degrade the publicly-available signal. The $2.8 billion Galileo project would go live in 2008, promising a permanent signal and greater accuracy than GPS.
