OPINION — “The necessity for correct and uninterrupted PNT (Positioning, Navigation and Timing) has by no means been extra important to our warfighters who function in GPS (International Positioning System)-denied environments. The profitable launch of the NTS-3 (Navigation Expertise Satellite tv for pc-3) system is step one in updating twentieth century expertise to assist tackle present threats to our nationwide safety.”
That was Ed Zoiss, President of the Area & Airborne Techniques phase for L3Harris Applied sciences, talking August 13, in regards to the profitable launch and arrival in orbit of NTS-3, essentially the most superior U.S. experimental navigation satellite tv for pc in practically 50 years, that was designed and led by the Air Drive Analysis Laboratory (AFRL) with L3Harris Applied sciences as prime contractor.
NTS-3 is managed by the AFRL Transformational Capabilities Workplace in partnership with the U.S. Area Drive and U.S. Air Drive.
Area Drive’s GPS gives essential positioning capabilities to army, civilian, and industrial customers around the globe. America authorities created GPS for the army in 1973, launched the primary satellite tv for pc in 1978, made the system accessible to civilians in 1988, and has operated the total system of 24 satellites since 1993.
Right now it’s freely accessible to anybody with a GPS receiver, which suggests greater than six billion customers worldwide, in line with GPS World, with an estimated 170 million within the U.S. Each day, GPS satellites help in air visitors management, banking, farming, mobile networks, and numerous different industries, and it’s maybe the house system that most individuals around the globe rely upon every day.
Nevertheless, in line with the Air Drive, “The quickly rising tempo of latest threats to GPS, corresponding to jamming and spoofing, point out that agile and resilient approaches to enhance the GPS system are wanted to take care of customers’ entry to its essential service.”
The GPS system’s 24 operational satellites are strategically positioned in six medium earth orbits (MEOs), at an altitude of roughly 12,550 miles, with three to 4 satellites in every aircraft making two orbits a day. This configuration ensures that at the very least six satellites are seen from any level on Earth at any given time.
NTS-3, is predicted to vary the structure for satellite tv for pc navigation and to ship extra sturdy PNT capabilities to warfighters.
NTS-3 will perform some 100 checks over the approaching 12 months from near-geosynchronous orbit (GEO), the place the satellite tv for pc orbits straight above the equator at about 22,236 miles above the earth. The satellite tv for pc’s orbital interval is near 24 hours and seems stationary from the bottom,
thus giving NTS-3 a transparent, unobstructed and distinct vantage level with out the interruption of climate or atmospheric distortion.
The NTS-3 program integrates a space-based payload, a reconfigurable floor management phase, and agile person receivers — all linked by reprogrammable software program. This structure permits for fast updates throughout all segments, enabling operators to counter jamming, deploy new alerts, and adapt to evolving mission necessities with out changing {hardware}.
In accordance with an AFRL launch, “The [NTS-3] satellite tv for pc will broadcast navigation alerts from its phased-array antenna, which might electronically steer alerts to a desired area [on earth] with out bodily shifting the satellite tv for pc. These alerts are created by way of a digital, on-orbit reprogrammable PNT sign generator, which not solely helps legacy alerts and superior alerts not presently broadcast on GPS, but additionally permits new sign updates after launch.”
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NTS-3 will check a brand new digital sign generator, AFRL stated, “that may be reprogrammed on-orbit, enabling it to broadcast new alerts, enhance efficiency by avoiding and defeating interference, and including signatures to counter spoofing.” A aim is to make doable the importing of a sign to the satellite tv for pc and begin transmitting it with out having to relaunch all the satellite tv for pc.
AFRL additionally stated NTS-3 may also check “the CHIMERA (Chips-Message Strong Authentication) sign authentication protocol, which is designed to collectively authenticate satellite tv for pc orbit knowledge and measurements of the vary between the satellite tv for pc and person.” CHIMERA gives “an especially sturdy safety towards GPS spoofing for civil customers. Future variations of CHIMERA, or totally different sorts of alerts, might be uploaded to the satellite tv for pc at any level after launch, primarily based on new information or menace developments on the bottom.”
Over the subsequent 12 months, AFRL will conduct a sequence of demonstrations to evaluate these applied sciences in life like operational eventualities, from countering digital interference to quickly deploying new sign configurations in response to rising threats.
“As a result of SATNAV (satellite tv for pc navigation) is critically depending on exact timekeeping,” AFRL stated, “NTS-3 could have a number of atomic clocks and timing sources onboard the satellite tv for pc that might be used each independently and as an optimized ensemble to permit for automated clock error detection and correction.”
The NTS-3 Floor Management Phase (GCS), AFRL stated, is suitable with the Enterprise Floor Providers, an structure that the Area Forces’ Area and Missile Techniques Heart is growing, to offer a typical system for satellite tv for pc command and management. “The aim is to maneuver from a portfolio of stove-piped floor techniques to a single system that may join with all Air Drive and Area Drive satellites, saving hundreds of thousands of {dollars} by streamlining person coaching and operations,” AFRL stated.
NTS-3 floor management can be planning to leverage commercially-available providers corresponding to floor antennas and monitoring receivers to extend alternatives for contact time with the satellite tv for pc whereas decreasing dependence on already strained authorities antenna sources.
AFRL can be working with the non-profit MITRE Corp., to develop a reprogrammable software-defined receiver known as the International Navigation Satellite tv for pc System Take a look at Structure (GNSSTA). That new receiver will permit customers to obtain each legacy GPS and superior alerts generated by NTS-3 — and is in fact essential.
Warfighters would be the final beneficiaries of the affect of latest navigation applied sciences and built-in SATNAV capabilities, and any adjustments to the sign being broadcast from house should be communicated to and coordinated with that person phase. NTS-3 checks might be used to display new options for warfighters carrying so-called Software program-Outlined Radios (SDRs), able to receiving and processing reprogrammable SATNAV alerts.
Testing will present whether or not warfighter SDRs “will have the ability to entry correct PNT knowledge and enhanced versatile anti-jam and anti-spoof protections,” in line with AFRL. “Classes from the GNSSTA software program structure developed by way of NTS-3 will pave the way in which for future DoD main protection packages to efficiently join service women and men to a versatile and resilient SATNAV structure of the longer term.”
Very similar to downloading a brand new smartphone app, consider what future NTS-3 software program updates can carry routinely to future customers with out the recapitalization effort usually required to improve.
That is the longer term for customers of GPS. Hopes are excessive that NTS-3 will information us down the appropriate path.
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