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The Pentagon ought to set up a devoted finances to help its Golden Dome missile protection protect’s positioning, navigation, and timing wants and assign a PNT result in coordinate wanted enhancements to floor and space-based navigation methods, in keeping with a brand new report from the Nationwide Safety House Affiliation.
The group’s space-focused assume tank, the Moorman Middle, argues in a Nov. 4 report that PNT capabilities are vital to Golden Dome’s capacity to trace targets, information interceptors, and command and management a fancy community of missile protection methods. The Division of the Protection, the report states, ought to acknowledge this dependency and make investments accordingly.
“Pressing investments in a nationwide, resilient PNT structure with no less than two or three sources which have markedly totally different failure modes are wanted to deal with and mitigate recognized vulnerabilities of GPS and different methods, whereas bolstering the effectiveness of Golden Dome,” James Frelk, vice chair of the Moorman Middle for House Research, writes.
The Pentagon has but to publicly launch an in depth plan for Golden Dome, a sophisticated missile protection protect that the White Home has projected will price $175 billion to discipline over the following three years. That price ticket is prone to develop because the Protection Division validates and fields extra superior parts of that structure like space-based interceptors. No matter form this system in the end takes, a strong place, navigation, and timing functionality is required, NSSA argues.
The report identifies potential vulnerabilities throughout the Protection Division’s PNT enterprise in addition to alternatives to improve present methods or leverage industrial alternate options. The GPS constellation, a mixture of 31 legacy and trendy satellites in medium-Earth orbit, is weak to all types of enemy assault from anti-satellite weapons to sign jamming and different digital warfare results.
Since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine started in 2022, Russia has repeatedly interfered with GPS, and there are quite a few different examples of Iran and China disrupting the aptitude within the Center East and the Indo-Pacific.
One choice for lowering GPS publicity is for the U.S. to disaggregate its PNT capabilities by inserting navigation satellites in different orbits in addition to MEO. This summer season, the House Pressure launched an experimental PNT spacecraft, dubbed Navigation Applied sciences Satellite tv for pc-3, to geosynchronous orbit, the place it is going to display whether or not a multi-orbit functionality can enhance resiliency.
The House Growth Company plans to host PNT indicators on future knowledge transport spacecraft in its low-Earth orbit constellation, utilizing optical inter-satellite hyperlinks. Nevertheless, that work is on pause because the House Pressure considers whether or not to construct out the SDA transport constellation or as an alternative leverage present methods like SpaceX’s Starlink.
Some industrial firms are launching PNT satellites to LEO for protection and industrial purposes, and the report notes these methods might play a task within the army’s structure as soon as they mature.
The division additionally has choices on the bottom. Terrestrial PNT methods like Loran, which makes use of low-frequency radio indicators, might show significantly helpful for Golden Dome’s mission to guard main cities in opposition to uncrewed plane system intrusions. Many different international locations leverage Loran for PNT, however whereas DOD has invested in transmission websites, the system has not but been tapped for U.S. protection.
“Terrestrial PNT capabilities maintain the potential of enhancing U.S. army resiliency, particularly in monitoring and defeating UAS threats to metropolitan areas,” the report states. “This will likely be essential to Golden Dome’s position defending metropolitan areas from unmanned aerial methods. These ‘Metro Golden Domes’ have to be equally responsive and would require entry to a resilient PNT structure as a lot as or greater than different layers inside the Golden Dome.”
In addition to Loran, the army might reap the benefits of the Broadcast Positioning System, which operates through tv broadcast infrastructure, the report notes.
To higher perceive what shortfalls exist throughout the present PNT structure, NSSA recommends the Pentagon conduct a “fast hole evaluation” centered particularly on enhancements wanted to satisfy Golden Dome necessities. The division ought to present that evaluation, in addition to any funding necessities, to Congress to tell future resourcing choices.
Together with its suggestions to higher fund PNT enchancment initiatives and job an acquisition official with main these efforts, NSSA proposes the Pentagon create an “integration administration exercise” to determine and check PNT methods and upgrades and to develop protections in opposition to PNT threats.
“The adversary may also be creating counter-PNT methods, and people adversary methods have to be thwarted,” the report states.
Lastly, NSSA calls on the division to mannequin its Golden Dome acquisition methods on these of organizations just like the House Growth Company and undertake industrial companies every time attainable.
“A combination of bespoke nationwide safety PNT methods can allow fast and resilient enhancements within the timelines wanted for Golden Dome deployments,” the report states.
Audio of this text is dropped at you by the Air & House Forces Affiliation, honoring and supporting our Airmen, Guardians, and their households. Discover out extra at afa.org