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European Space Agency Developing GPS Rival

Posted by chrisd on from the gps-makes-sdi-missles-happy dept.

nbrimhall writes "The International Herald Tribune has a story here about the European Space Agency's plans to create a alternative to the U.S. controlled GPS. It includes some interesting information regarding the cost and possible contributors (including Canada and Russia)."

2 of 360 comments (clear)

  1. Two Good Reasons by Boom-Boom · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Actually, the U.S. Department of Defense has clearly outlined scenarios in which GPS would be locally shut down and/or jammed; Space.com had an interesting story about it earlier this month.
    Another reason is the available of ultrawideband technology (UWB). It's really interesting, relatively inexpensive, and can provide tremendously accurate (1 centimeter) positioning.
    No, I don't own stock in it or anything like that (although, as a U.S. citizen, I should).

  2. Jamming by jessohyes · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The article mentioned that the U.S. Military was now capable of Jamming GPS signals so that is the reason they turned off Selective Availability. So why wouldn't it be possible for the enemy to make jammers to stop us from using our own system? (or any GPS system for that matter). From what I've heard GPS signals that finally make it to the receiver are very weak and therefore a stronger signal coming from somewhere on the ground would possibly interfere. Wouldn't this be a Denial of Service GPS style? Does the military signal have some sort of antijam feature? Lets hope so.