The antenna delivers peak gain of up to 1.5 dBi, approximately 50% efficiency across both bands, and an axial ratio of around 4 dB, with stable right-hand circular polarization. It supports GPS, Galileo, GLONASS and BeiDou. The passive variant uses a pin-mount configuration optimized for a standard 70 mm x 70 mm ground plane. The active AGVLB208.A ships with 1.13 mm micro-coax cable and an I-PEX MHF I connector.

Target applications include UAVs, autonomous delivery robots, precision agriculture, telematics and fleet tracking. Taoglas says dual-band operation reduces multipath interference for more reliable centimeter-level positioning in complex RF environments.

An active SMD variant with integrated electronics designed for high-volume automated manufacturing is planned for later this year. The GVLB208 series is available now through Taoglas and its authorized distributors.

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PlanetiQ already provides NASA with ionospheric scintillation data, ionospheric total electron content measurements, and high-SNR GNSS radio occultation data under the program.

The expanded offering gives government researchers access to observations designed to improve understanding of precipitation processes, atmospheric structure, and Earth system dynamics. Polarimetric radio occultation extends traditional GNSS-RO by using dual-polarization receivers — capturing both horizontally and vertically polarized returns from circularly polarized GNSS signals. Because raindrops and snowflakes tend to flatten as they fall, the horizontally polarized component is slightly delayed relative to the vertical; measuring that phase difference yields information about rain and snowfall structure, melting layers, horizontal precipitation banding, and storm intensity variation.

PlanetiQ’s high-SNR receivers are central to the capability’s value for precipitation applications, where greater sensitivity to lighter precipitation and certain cloud structures is critical.

“As more researchers gain access to high-SNR PRO data, we expect both the scientific understanding and the potential operational uses of the technology for precipitation and severe weather monitoring to expand,” said Dr. E. Robert Kursinski, Chief Scientist of PlanetiQ.

Access through the CSDA program is available to NASA researchers, other U.S. government agencies, and international collaborators. PlanetiQ, founded in 2015 and based in Golden, Colorado, received NOAA’s largest-ever commercial satellite weather data contract in 2025, valued at $24.3 million, and holds a $15 million U.S. Air Force STRATFI contract for next-generation weather data from space.

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Announced June 17, Kestrel integrates Honeywell’s HG3900 MEMS Inertial Measurement Unit with an M-code receiver and a multi-GNSS receiver in a package the company says is 40 percent smaller and lighter than comparable EGI products on the market. The M-code capability provides access to the military GPS signal’s enhanced anti-spoofing and anti-jam protections, while the multi-GNSS receiver broadens the available constellation coverage under nominal conditions. When external signals are unavailable, the INS layer maintains self-contained navigation continuity.

The system is intended primarily for Group 2 and 3 collaborative combat aircraft and loitering munitions, where the combination of SWaP-C constraints and GNSS-denial risk is most acute, though Honeywell notes applicability to crewed platforms with similar constraints. The company claims up to 80 percent improvement in navigation accuracy over legacy systems and cost reductions of up to 50 percent — both figures are company-sourced. Kestrel will be available in non-ITAR configurations for international defense and commercial operators.

“This system helps operators maintain mission objectives in environments where legacy GPS systems are lagging behind,” said Matt Picchetti, vice president and general manager of Navigation & Sensors at Honeywell Aerospace. Honeywell has produced more than 60,000 EGI units since pioneering the technology in the mid-1990s.

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For Inertial Labs, the Virginia-based inertial navigation specialist acquired by VIAVI Solutions in 2025, that challenge has become the central driver of product development.

Speaking to Inside GNSS in Paris, Inertial Labs Sales Engineer Jackson Williams said his company has spent more than two decades refining inertial technologies while steadily expanding into sensor fusion and assured navigation. “We’re kind of a 25-year overnight success,” he quipped. The company started in 2001, based in Northern Virginia. “We also have manufacturing in Rapid City, South Dakota, and another R&D office in Kiev, Ukraine,” Williams said.

Over the past two decades, the company has evolved from a sensor manufacturer into a provider of complete navigation solutions. At the heart of that portfolio are gyroscopes and accelerometers, the foundational sensors that measure rotational and linear motion. Those are integrated into inertial measurement units (IMUs), which then form the basis of increasingly sophisticated inertial navigation systems.

Core competence

Williams summarized the company’s mission simply: “We do GPS&I, that is GPS plus inertial navigation, for autonomous vehicles. Starting with the base level sensors, we build our IMUs, and then create more complex inertial navigation systems out of those.” That focus has naturally led the company toward sensor fusion, using further data sources to constrain drift and improve overall navigation performance.

“Our main selling point and our kind of specialty is sensor fusion,” Williams said. “So we bring in aiding forms of data, such as air data computers, magnetometers for heading, fiber optic and man-time use, and low Earth constellation satellites for assured position and navigation and timing.”

Multiple aiding sources help constrain inertial drift and improve solution integrity. By fusing diverse, independent measurements, Inertial Labs seeks to maintain navigation performance in degraded environments, a sensor-diversity approach that Williams described as central to the company’s strategy.

“We bring in things like radio as well, line of sight, time of flight, time of arrival data,” he said. “We fuse these all together, curate them to our customers’ requirements, specifications, and support them when they’re on. We like to be very hands-on with our projects.”

Where it matters

Electronic warfare systems deployed particularly in Ukraine have demonstrated how vulnerable GNSS signals can be to interference. Modern assured-PNT architectures increasingly depend on multiple complementary sensors working together.

One example of a key aiding source is Inertial Labs’ miniature Air Data Computer (ADC). Designed for low size, weight and power consumption, the ADC provides airspeed, altitude and atmospheric measurements that can be fused with inertial data. For unmanned aircraft operating in dynamic flight conditions, those measurements provide an additional reference that helps maintain navigation accuracy during GNSS degradation or loss.

The war in Ukraine has also had a direct influence on product development. Inertial Labs’ Kiev office, originally established in 2006 as a conventional R&D center, now plays an important role in testing and validation. The value of that operational feedback has been significant. “All of our products are battlefield tested and qualified, vetted through our people in Ukraine,” he said. “And with everything that’s going on there, we’re getting a lot of feedback. That’s been a large factor in driving our innovation and our improvements in our devices.”

For many of the companies we met at Eurosatory, the war in Ukraine has become an unprecedented laboratory for navigation technologies. GNSS denial, electronic attack and contested electromagnetic environments have shifted inertial navigation from a backup capability to a central component of military positioning architectures.

Partnering in space

The emphasis on multiple, complementary navigation sources is also reflected in Inertial Labs’ work with the Iridium company. Iridium operates a global low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellite constellation whose signals are increasingly being explored for resilient PNT applications. LEO-PNT satellites operating in low Earth orbit transmit significantly stronger signals than traditional medium-Earth-orbit GNSS constellations. Inertial Labs’ partnership with Iridium emerged publicly in 2026 with the introduction of IRINS, a system that combines Inertial Labs’ tactical-grade inertial sensors with Iridium’s LEO satellite capabilities.

Despite defense dominating current demand, Williams emphasized that commercial applications remain important. “Right now our main market obviously is the defense space and things of that nature,” he said. “But our IMUs are industrial grade up to tactical grade, so there is a portfolio, or a space in the portfolio for your commercial base use cases.”

He pointed specifically to the company’s LiDAR payload business. “That payload is called RESEPI and is used primarily in the commercial space, meaning farming, construction, things of that nature,” Williams said. Whatever the application, whether it’s about supporting battlefield autonomy, or infrastructure mapping and precision agriculture, the underlying requirement remains the same: reliable motion sensing and navigation in challenging environments.

Eurosatory 2026 showed clearly what our readers already knew – assured PNT is now a necessity rather than a specialized capability. Listening to Williams, a consistent case emerged: the future of navigation will not depend on a single sensor, signal or satellite constellation, but will require the ability to combine and interweave the widest available selection of them.

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SparkPNT’s initial lineup includes four product families. Facet FP is an IP67-rated modular GNSS receiver line available in seven configurations, built for serviceability and long-term upgradeability. TX2 is a quadband GNSS receiver supporting RTK and Galileo HAS for centimeter-level positioning, aimed at surveying applications, with an IP67 enclosure and integrated antenna. The SXM-E Reference Station is a continuously operating reference station with a web-based control interface capable of acting as an NTRIP caster. SXT and SXT-D GNSSDO units are timing products designed to deliver sub-1ns accuracy with enhanced frequency stability.

The company is positioning the line around open-source and customizable architecture rather than the proprietary ecosystems that have historically dominated high-precision positioning and surveying.

“For over twenty years, SparkFun has made cutting-edge electronics more accessible. With SparkPNT, we are applying that exact same philosophy to precision positioning,” said Glenn Samala, CEO of SparkFun Electronics. “We aren’t just launching a new line of GNSS products, we are launching an adaptable, future-proof PNT platform that gives industrial, logistics, robotic, and agricultural sectors commercial-grade precision at a fraction of standard costs—fully backed by a mature manufacturing powerhouse that knows how to deliver at scale.”

SparkPNT founder Nathan Seidle said the company’s goal is to open up a market segment built on closed systems. “For decades, the high-precision positioning and surveying markets have been dominated by proprietary ecosystems. Our goal is to provide field-ready high-precision systems that utilize an open-source and customizable architecture, putting true ownership in the hands of the user.”

SparkPNT is based in Boulder, Colorado.

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According to a Telegram post by Ukrainian Defense Ministry advisor Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov on June 16, Guarantor was developed by the company Rossiysky Kupol LLC based in Simferopol, Crimea and first appeared in 2024 near Kharkiv—where at least one system was destroyed.

But recently in 2026, Russia began multiplying Guarantor deployment along the southern highway “land bridge” between Russian soil and Crimea to counter Ukraine’s destructive medium-range strike drones that have ravaged fuel truck logistics, causing a stark fuel shortage in Crimea.

In response, Ukraine’s military has released videos showing two strikes on individual trailers of Guarantor systems by the 422nd “Luftwaffe” Unmanned Systems Regiment—attached to the 17th Corps operating in central-southern Ukraine.

Beskrestnov describes an approach intended to interfere with a Starlink satellite’s reception of terminal uplinks by transmitting interference in the relevant Ku-band uplink channels:

“Technically, a Starlink satellite receives signals from terminals in the 14–14.5 GHz range. This range is divided into 8 channels, each 62.5 MHz wide. The Russians basically took 8 satellite dishes, pointed them at the satellite, and each dish transmits interference on its own channel.” Beskrestnov claims this can effectively “deafen” the satellite to terminals in the affected area.

He further details that each Guarantor system encompasses six trailers, each with capacity for two of the system’s eight rotating dish antennas, each of which is covered by egg-shaped domes. Implicitly, then, some trailers carry just one antenna. The antennas can be optionally dismounted, and the power-hungry system can either be sustained by trailer-mounted generators or from external sources.

Beskrestnov concludes each system can effectively deny Starlink access across “roughly 20 square kilometers.” Calculating backwards, this implies a circular radius of just over 2.52 kilometers, or 1.57 miles.

That suggests point defense of a local area, but the radius remains small enough that a Starlink-controlled drone with automatic target tracking could still acquire an optical lock from outside this defensive bubble on targets within the protected area, including Guarantor systems themselves. Indeed, optical lock-on seems possibly present in at least one of the videos released by the 422nd Regiment.

Russian Telegram drone blogger “Unmanned Brotherhood” claims Guarantor is causing Ukrainian forces to complain of “significant problems” but concedes the system has downsides: “the EW system is currently quite large and conspicuous, though this issue is expected to be rectified in the future.” Another Russian technical specialist, Sergei Trukhachev, told Russia’s TASS news agency that the system demonstrated “high effectiveness during local tactical operations.”

Beskrestnov claims the systems are being sold at the “absolutely magical” price of $1.5 million apiece. While that does not seem prohibitive by American standards, in consideration of the limited area protected, that price point may prevent deployment from being scaled to extend coverage over large areas like the hundreds of miles of highway in southern Ukraine under assault by Starlink-enabled drones.

That Ukraine itself is striking Guarantor systems suggests they are effective enough to be worth attacking, but nonetheless apparently vulnerable to strikes. Besides being targetable at distance with electro-optical guidance, the system’s high-power emissions could also make it vulnerable to emitter-location tactics, including electronic support measures, loitering munitions cued by RF detection, or purpose-built home-on-jam weapons.

Jamming a cloud of gnats

Starlink is notoriously difficult to jam compared to traditional geostationary satellites, for the same reason it is harder to swat a cloud of gnats than an individual fly: it consists of a network of over 10,000 low-Earth orbit satellites that are constantly moving at high speed. Although each satellite remains overhead for roughly five to seven minutes, Starlink’s network timing and beam/satellite management operate on short, synchronized intervals, and user terminals can transition among satellites as geometry changes, complicating attempts to focus jamming on a single moving spacecraft.

This means that a huge number of emitters would be needed to continuously jam Starlink over a wide area; for example, a study by China’s Zhejiang University and Beijing Institute of Technology estimated China would require at least 935 high-powered, or 2,000 low-powered, aerial jamming platforms to deny Starlink across an area the size of Taiwan, or 13,900 square miles.

With its focus on just one satellite at a time, it is not clear how well Russia’s Guarantor overcomes the Starlink “cloud of gnats” challenge. Is an external system continuously re-cueing the Guarantor jammers to target the next most relevant satellite as their orbital positions shift? And if Guarantor only jams one satellite at a time, does that really suffice to ensure another Starlink satellite is not also able to cover that area simultaneously?

It is also worth bearing in mind that Starlink’s jamming resistance extends beyond distributed targeting to other design characteristics, including the ability to adaptively null interference returns from areas generating jamming signals.

Intel on Rossiysky Kupol LLC

A Russian article in March 2025 provides additional details on a C-UAS “super EW” system developed by approximately 150 scientists at Rossiysky Kupol LLC, funded in part by local authorities in Crimea, and allegedly effective against UAS targets at a 20-kilometer radius, or 12.4 miles. Without otherwise mentioning satellite jamming, the article alleges this system “unintentionally suppressed” GPS signals in a neighboring European country, presumably Romania, and allegedly “prevented” an attack by 25 drones targeting a plant near Rostov.

The rise of satellite mega-constellations

It is instructive to observe Russia’s efforts to defend against a distributed satellite mega-constellation, because this technology is not destined to remain uniquely in American hands.

Russia itself is spending approximately $5.3 billion attempting to build a constellation of 292 satellites by 2030 called Rassvet, or “Dawn,” with plans to further scale to 900 satellites. Progress to date has been slow, with 16 operational satellites launched from Plesetsk, one of which has since failed.

Meanwhile, China is advancing three mega-constellations: the commercially oriented Qianfan, or “Thousand Sails,” aiming for 15,000 satellites; the state-owned GuoWang, or “National Network,” a dual-use constellation with 13,000 satellites; and the telecom-oriented Honghu-3, aiming for 10,000 satellites.

Implications for LEO constellation resilience

Guarantor is clearly no panacea. It cannot broadly overcome the distributed redundancy of the Starlink mega-constellation—a single system covering 20 square kilometers against a network of more than 10,000 satellites performing rapid handoffs is, at best, a pinhole defense. Yet the ability to shield a limited, high-value area can still be meaningfully preferable to having no defense at all, and Russian commanders appear to have drawn that same conclusion.

The more consequential lesson is strategic. Russia, China, and the United States all possess broader, not fully disclosed counterspace capabilities, but those tools are rarely available to tactical field commanders. What Guarantor represents is an attempt to bring satellite denial to the unit level—trading coverage breadth for deployability. As LEO mega-constellations multiply and become the backbone of battlefield communications for multiple powers, the tactical demand for localized counter-constellation tools will only grow. The U.S. and its allies, potentially facing adversary LEO networks of comparable scale within a decade, would be prudent to treat Guarantor not as a curiosity but as an early indicator of a new category of tactical electronic warfare.

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SkyBarrier is designed to jam all four major global navigation satellite systems simultaneously: GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, and BeiDou. HENSOLDT states the jamming effect covers both civilian and military signal variants, including encrypted signals, across the full range of currently relevant frequency and coding variants.

The system is built around rapid deployment: HENSOLDT says two operators can complete setup — including mast assembly and cabling — within minutes, with activation via a mechanical front-panel switch requiring no software configuration. The complete system consists of a single portable electronics unit, an extendable telescopic mast, and associated accessories.

HENSOLDT designed SkyBarrier for incremental upgradability, stating that new signal types can be added by replacing individual components rather than the full system. The company also notes a minimal physical interface profile — three hardware interfaces with no external data communication pathways — as a deliberate cybersecurity measure.

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PANOSETI — Pulsed All-sky Near-infrared Optical SETI — is a multi-institutional program led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley. The system requires extremely precise time coordination across widely separated telescope nodes to detect fast-transient optical and near-infrared signals. Traditionally that level of synchronization has depended on fiber-based infrastructure such as White Rabbit, which is costly and impractical to deploy at remote observatory sites.

Using the u-blox ZED-F9T, the PANOSETI team demonstrated approximately 0.7 nanosecond standard deviation between 1PPS signals over a 1-kilometer baseline, with performance improving to around 200 picoseconds using filtering techniques — meeting or exceeding the requirements for next-generation distributed sensing systems.

“Achieving this level of synchronization without fiber is a significant step forward for distributed instrumentation,” said Dan Werthimer, Chief Scientist of the PANOSETI project at UC Berkeley. “It allows us to achieve the timing precision we need for our telescope array in locations where traditional fiber-based systems are not feasible.”

The u-blox announcement frames the result as extending beyond scientific research, pointing to applications in distributed sensor networks, remote timing systems, and resilience of critical infrastructure.

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The milestone centers on Qualinx’s QLX3xx — a reconfigurable GNSS SoC and Analog Front End targeting secure positioning, navigation, and timing applications, including resilient timing and synchronization networks and ultra-low-power GNSS receivers for connected edge deployments. The chip was designed, taped out, and manufactured entirely at GF’s Dresden fab using its FDX process technology. No design data or physical materials left the European Union at any stage of production.

“Our partnership with Qualinx marks the first operational milestone,” said Dr. Manfred Horstmann, SVP and General Manager at GF. “It shows that complex, security-relevant ASIC designs for aerospace, defense, and critical infrastructure can already be industrialized today using a fully European, trusted manufacturing path.”

Qualinx CEO Tom Trill characterized the flow as proof that full European manufacturing control is no longer theoretical. “This first secure product demonstrates that a fully European manufacturing path — from mask services to wafer production — is already a reality today,” he said, adding that the effort gives Qualinx complete control over IP, data, and supply chain within Europe.

The Dresden fab’s sovereign manufacturing capability is co-funded under the European Chips Act. GF says it aims to have a fully automated trusted European flow in place by end of 2026, with regular foundry engagements available to aerospace and defense customers starting in 2027. That roadmap will incorporate European IP partners, mask houses, and OSAT service providers.

GF is also working with Deutsche Telekom on a parallel effort to ensure that production data — from design and tape-out through manufacturing and quality — can be processed, transported, and stored entirely on European networks, cloud infrastructure, and data centers. The practices developed there are intended to feed directly into the scaling of the sovereign manufacturing model.

Qualinx, headquartered in Delft, Netherlands, was founded in 2015. The company’s proprietary Digital Radio Frequency technology implements traditional analog receive-chain functions in digital hardware, targeting GNSS, PNT, and PVT chipsets and modules for applications ranging from automotive and fleet to wearables and asset tracking.

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It’s late at night, January 29, 2026. Most of Southern California is asleep. Ships approaching Long Beach harbor from the West key their mics on VHF channel 14 and report GNSS outages to LA/Long Beach Vessel Traffic Service (VTIS). Aircraft over the Channel Islands squawk the same via ADS-B. NOAA Continuously Operating Reference Station (CORS) sites record anomalies in L1 and L2 signal-to-noise ratios. All of this within an hour.  

While spoofing and jamming of GNSS have been recurring issues in conflict zones, incidents like this show no one is immune. 

Maritime Impacts

Automatic Identification System (AIS) reports from at least 7 vessels indicate position jumps indicative of spoofing. At least one vessel’s AIS system ceased transmitting altogether for nearly an hour, likely due to an invalid GNSS solution. Data indicates this event covered greater than a 100-mile area, including the critical LA/Long Beach Traffic Separation Scheme. 

All of the documented GNSS anomalies occurred within one hour, but the most dramatic position jumps shown by AIS messages lasted only several minutes. The short duration of the event is the only factor that prevented greater impact on PNT and limited public awareness of the event.

All of the reported interference occurred between 11 p.m. and midnight local time, with good visibility and no inclement weather, and all the vessels involved entered port without incident.  But, it should be noted that several of the vessels were navigating in close proximity to one another in the vessel traffic separation scheme, and loss of valid GNSS solution could impact situational awareness and create distraction at a critical point in their voyages.

Figure 2 shows the AIS track of a large container ship showing position jumps resulting in invalid, erratic course and speed over ground:

A tanker experienced similar position jumps:

In addition to AIS vessel reports, which typically are transmitted at about 10 second intervals while underway, three local NOAA CORS sites recorded Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) anomalies in the same hour:

Figure 4 

Aviation Affected

Additionally, the GPSjam.org website showed aircraft evidence (ADS-B messages) of GNSS anomalies much further to the southwest of the reporting commercial ships, indicating the interference may have covered a far larger area than AIS data indicates. 

Figure 5 

The Source

On February 4, six days after the event, the minutes of the L.A./Long Beach Harbor Safety Committee meeting recorded:

“GPS Outages: On the evening of January 29, VTS LA-LB received multiple reports of GPS outages from vessels in the LA-LB AOR. Sector personnel, with support from our port partners and the Coast Guard Navigation Center, were able to identify a GPS testing event as the likely cause. While there were no incidents or negative impacts due to the outages, the Coast Guard continues to investigate the outages and will take action to prevent recurrence.”

While GPS testing is a regular occurrence, interference like that of Jan 29, 2026, is quite rare.  

The available data does not provide certainty, but the most likely source of these anomalies was a GPS test dubbed PMSRCA 26-02, that is, Point Mugu Sea Range California 26-02.  

An FAA Notices to Airmen (NOTAMs) released on January 22, 2026. states: 

“GPS testing is scheduled as follows and may result in unreliable or unavailable GPS signal.”

A. Centered at 332451N1183430W or the SXC VOR 272-degree radial at 8 NM. 

                                        (near Catalina Island)

B. Dates and times (Dates and times are based on GMT (Z).): 

27 – 31 JAN 26 DLY 0700Z – 1400Z  (event occurred 30 Jan 0700Z – 0800Z)

D. NOTAM INFO: NAV GPS (PMSRCA GPS 26-02) (INCLUDING WAAS, GBAS, AND ADS-B) MAY NOT BE AVBL WI A 452NM RADIUS CENTERED AT 332451N1183430W (SXC272008) FL400-UNL, 

                   …and included this graphic (Figure 6):

While NOTAMs alert aviation, the U.S. Coast Guard Navigation Center (NAVCEN) website publishes monthly schedules of GPS testing for mariners. However, PMSRCA 26-02 was not listed on the January schedule, but did appear on the February GPS testing schedule released on February 13, 2026, about two weeks after the January 29 jamming and spoofing instances.

Even though the NAVCEN website may not have published notification of that particular GPS test in a timely manner, GPS anomalies are so infrequent in the Americas that few mariners would likely have been alerted. The unfortunate reality is the United States, unlike China, Russia, South Korea, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia and India, has not established a viable alternate PNT system.  

When GPS/GNSS is unreliable or unavailable, AIS goes down with it, or, even worse, will transmit and receive spoofed position, courses and speeds. Until an alternative PNT system to backup GNSS is a reality, the only option is to defend GNSS against jamming and spoofing. There are technologies with such capabilities, but they have yet to be embraced by the shipping industry.  That risk-reward calculation may change if GNSS reliability continues to erode not only in conflict zones, but other parts of the globe as well. We may be entering new frontiers in electronic warfare as recent reports of space-based interference could raise the stakes for PNT users across the globe.

Authors 

Captain James Haley is a senior consultant for UHU Technologies. He served for 32 years as a harbor pilot and navigation technology expert in Long Beach, Calif.

Captain Dana A. Goward is President of the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation. He retired from the Senior Executive Service and served as the maritime navigation authority for the U.S.

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