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Lockheed Martin Awarded GPS III
D Ninja writes "Yesterday, Lockheed Martin was awarded the $1.4 billion Air Force contract to build the next-generation global positioning satellite system. This occurred after a series of delays as the Air Force decided between Lockheed and the competing bidding contractor, Boeing Co. 'GPS III, will give new navigation warfare (NAVWAR) capabilities to shut off GPS service to a limited geographical location while providing GPS to US and allied forces. GPS III will offer significant improvements in navigation capabilities by improving interoperability and jam resistance. The procurement of the GPS III system is planned for multiple blocks, with the GPS IIIA portion currently underway. GPS IIIA includes all of the GPS IIF capability plus up to a ten-fold increase in signal power, a new civil signal compatible with the European Union's Galileo system, and a new spacecraft bus that will allow a growth path to future blocks.'"
You do realize that NASA is a hell of a lot like the Air Force, they pay a bunch of contractors like Lockheed to do most of the work? NASA isn't interested (and has no authority over) the warfare parts, they have very little that's classified by way of personnel and information, so it's a job much more suited to the Air Force, what with the NAVWAR and other capabilities they think it needs.
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Do these sattelites have defences? Are their locations unknown by the enemy? No!
Day 1, 0900: War Declared
Day 1, 0915: All GPS satellites blasted out of the sky
Day 1, 0930: US surrenders due to lack of any ability to locate their troops and organise them
GPS in a military situation has always seemed to me kind of a bad idea to rely on too much. You put all this technology in your air crafts, your tanks, all your hummers, but when these precious badly defended satellites get knocked out the planes cant fly and tanks, ships and other operations are seriously impared. How secret can you keep a satellite and how do you defend them (short of shooting anything that comes near them)
Boeing has a surplus of Commercial and Military Contracts. In fact, if we could have a few more prominent startups for Defense Contracting the better.
GPS outages that can be targeted to small geographic areas sure makes me reach for my tinfoil hat.
People not just in the U.S. but around the world have come to rely on it like it's public infrastructure.
Operator, give me the number for 911!
It's something of a nuclear option. It's very hard to imagine any president actually authorizing this. I mean, think about it, you invade Iran or something and maybe you'd like to turn off their GPS. But nearby there are giant oil tankers being steered by GPS and airliners overhead (nearby) with GPS autopilots. Is it worth the risk of those crashing? I just don't see it happening in any situation short of a general world war.
In case of war, it won't be the US that will shut down GPS. It will be the US enemies.
Satellites are extremely vulnerable. They would be the first thing to be hit in case of a major war, this was already predicted in this thirty-year-old book
500x more power - essentially that requires a tremendously larger amount of power. Even with the best phased array bad ass military style antennas you arent going to get this sort of a power increase - you gotta put more out of the antenna at the source - which means you are lifting honking huge freaking batteries up into space and you are gonna have to stick some mad solar panels on the sucka too.
PS. I completely agree with the sentiment in your last sentence. - with that money you could probably mount a significant effort toward eliminating malaria in subtropical/tropical areas of the world, saving millions of children. Or you could provide an absurd amount of aid to prevent water born diseases in the 3rd world - or you could mount a tremendous anti-hunger campaign. Bottom line - bigger batteries on a satellite are more important to the people in charge.
Prediction: The real iPhone killer is going to be sex robots from Japan. Think about it.
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Satellites are extremely vulnerable. They would be the first thing to be hit in case of a major war, this was already predicted in this thirty-year-old book
A satellite's vulnerability really depends on it's orbit. Satellites in Low Earth Orbit a few hundred miles up are pretty vulnerable (as the US Navy shootdown of an errant American spy satellite recently showed). GPS satellites are in a much higher orbit, around 12,600 miles up. That makes them considerably more difficult to hit and probably puts them out of range of a lot of antisatellite capabilities (of course it's hard to tell since no country actually admits to having an ASAT weapon, much less what it's exact capabilities are). Communications satellites in geostationary orbit 22,240 are even more difficult to get to. In a war I'd be a lot more concerned about the reconnaissance satellites than GPS or communications sats.The other side has rockets and nukes too, you know.
Exactly. It seems silly for a military to spend all this money to gain a tactical advantage, and then leave it wide open for the enemy to use. This is the modern equivalent of blowing up your own bridges so the bad guys can't cross 'em.
We used to have "Selective Availability". That meant that the US military GPS signal was much more accurate than those found on civilian receivers. President Clinton had SA turned off worldwide meaning the civilian GPS signal is now as accurate as US military systems. Since GPS is so integrated into society now it will probably never be turned on again. I don't think (I seldom ever do any thinking) that the current system can currently be shut off by region but SA can be turned back on regionally.
"Freedom Through Vigilance"
I am a little more concerned with my car being driven off a cliff by an automated traffic control system because some asshat decides to invade some other asshat, and to hell with the civilians using the system.
The insistence on a NAVWAR backdoor is rather stupid. In the last three wars in which it has been involved, the U.S. has pretty much had its rear kicked by enemies using what amounts to 1940s technology. The danger to US troops is not from WMDs, it's from IEDs made in peoples kitchens using easily obtained ordinance, generally with U.S. serial numbers on it.
If they want to blow me up, they're going to do it by setting up a bomb that reacts to the RFID in my "Real ID" card, U.S. Passport, or the pressure sensors in my tires, all of which are government mandated, and all of which go where I go, and so are really useful for targeting me both generally ("look, and American!") or personally. Or they'll use my IMEI on my cell phone, which on differs in that I'm not required to carry it, but probably will anyway.
If someone can build a missile that can get to me from where they are, then unless I am sitting in a bunker, a few hundred feet for going inertial or using airport beacons instead of GPS isn't going to matter much one way or another.
-- Terry
Hubris.
The civilian signal is unencrypted.
The military signal is encrypted.
All they do is flip a switch and the civilian signal is gone I daresay at some point it would be considered a war crime to disrupt GPS signals, in any case, when civilization is much more dependent on them, as I think it is reasonable to expect in the future. What?
A warcrime for a Sovereign Nation to control their property?
Why do you think the EU lofted their own GPS network?
Why do you think the Soviets began lofting GLONASS during the Cold War?
If you don't control it, don't depend on it.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Umm, lets start at the top. I assume you live in America. If you think France, Germany or the UK is going to invade Pakistan, well, that is honestly funny. Also... should they decide to invade Pakistan, are you seriously suggesting without gps they cannot do it? We aren't christopher columbus, we can find countries without gps. Further, do you realise not even US weapons use (or better put, require) gps. Scuds dont use gps + google maps to navigate. They use carefully tuned preprogrammed flight paths. More impressivly (or scarily) is ICBMS.. they have no guidance, they are shot into orbit and fall onto their targets in the km/s range with simple point and shoot logic. I could even point out the number 3 and most relevant point... no one can seriously choose to invade pakistan. They have the bomb, the same reason as no gps / anything will cause America to be invaded, you can wipe out the earth without gps with your nukes. Its called MAD, you might have heard of it. Its americas collapse via ecconomic reasons that is the real threat... just ask the soviet union. Why does history seem to have so many lessons? :p
I bet GPSIII will be operational way before Galileo is. The way we handle big projects here in Europe is appalling.
-- Cheers!
Somehow I think if it came to the US destroying EU satellites, there's more pressing things to worry about than the GPS on your car's navigation system failing. Like the massive retaliatory nuclear strike headed for your Wal-Mart.
"launch launch launch pop pop pop" could mean the following :
1) the EU possibly starts (possibly collaboration with the Chinese) to destroy all US satellite, including KH and GPS one.
2) all intellectual property of the US are forfeited
3) the US lose ANY support whatsoever. For a VERY long time. And it find itself isolated politically, and as much isolated economically as the world can bear (I doubt there is anything the US physically produce which could not be produced/built over a few month/years in another part of the world)
4) escalation of conflict in nuclear war. Remember, some country in EU still have the same nasty nuke that you have. Then we have 2 sets of loser (EU/US) and one winner : the rest of the world.
Anybody which think that the US can kill any satellite of the EU or China because they dislike it, should have its head examinated, because there would be pretty hefty consequence.
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The EU can also destroy US satellites.
It would actually be quite hilarious if this scenario ever plays out. There would be enough space debris around the earth to limit access to space for decades, perhaps centuries.
Maybe that's why aliens haven't visited us yet, non can leave their planet.
The EU does not WANT war. two world wars have taught us that.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?