Some navigation experts are questioning the increasing dependence on GPS satellite signals.
Today, as the shipping industry contemplates its move into the age of e-navigation, it is worth taking a moment to consider our huge and growing dependence on the Global Positioning System and its galaxy of satellites circling the earth. By 2015 it is expected that there will be some 140 navigational satellites up there, sending signals to the US, Russian, Chinese, Japanese and European systems. This, it has been suggested, will provide a greater degree of resilience to the users of GPS, should one system be switched off or degraded by some untoward event.
But will this plethora of navigational sources really provide the reliability we all need for the vast and increasing number of uses to which satellite signals are being put? … In recent incidents, signals reaching ships have been swamped by radio noise caused by solar storms and there is great concern about the next “solar high” in 2013, when our vulnerabilities will be tested more than ever before. Additionally, man-made radio interference and intentional jamming have been identified as serious concerns.