I watched a video on this recently. Really interesting, especially how the researchers figured out it was a Russian satellite in a really high orbit. All it takes is a low-power burst to overwhelm the GPS network because it runs on such low powered, sensitive signals. They theorize the Russians were testing for very brief windows to see how well it world work. They could jam these signals anywhere over the Earth. Same for other nations too.
All it takes is a low-power burst to overwhelm the GPS network because it runs on such low powered, sensitive signals.
The signals aren’t very sensitive, quite the opposite, they’re chosen because they can be very easily detected even at low powers. If you want to jam GNSS from the ground you don’t need a lot of power because the satellites are so far away and their signal is so low. If you want to jam it from a satellite you need quite a lot of power, especially if you consider that the suspected satellite constellation has twice the apogee of the GPS constellation. Also you don’t need a burst of power, you need sustained power to really jam GNSS, the suspected satellites only did bursts because they’re suspected of just testing their system.
I watched the Veritasium episode on it just yesterday! The other theory is that it was actually being used for covert signals and the disruption was secondary.
I thought that was the cover story. They deliberately used a channel partially in the bandwidth for some deniability. It isn’t like they didn’t know what bandwidth GPS used when they designed the satellite.
Considering the impact of these tests, that doesn’t seem likely. You wouldn’t be sending covert messages in a way that would be so heavily scrutinized. I know it was a theory presented during the video, but that’s just journalistic integrity.
And ultimately, even if they were covert messages, now they also know they can disrupt gps
I think the point was less about making the messages undetectable as it was about making them unjammable. In order to stop their transmission, we would have to essentially shut down GPS for the entire EU. So you might use that frequency to send critical, must-have messages.
Especially once a second signal was noticed that was almost exactly the frequency used by the Chinese GPS system, as mentioned in the Veritasium video.
I watched a video on this recently. Really interesting, especially how the researchers figured out it was a Russian satellite in a really high orbit. All it takes is a low-power burst to overwhelm the GPS network because it runs on such low powered, sensitive signals. They theorize the Russians were testing for very brief windows to see how well it world work. They could jam these signals anywhere over the Earth. Same for other nations too.
please by all means share this video
It was probably this one by Veritasium.
The signals aren’t very sensitive, quite the opposite, they’re chosen because they can be very easily detected even at low powers. If you want to jam GNSS from the ground you don’t need a lot of power because the satellites are so far away and their signal is so low. If you want to jam it from a satellite you need quite a lot of power, especially if you consider that the suspected satellite constellation has twice the apogee of the GPS constellation. Also you don’t need a burst of power, you need sustained power to really jam GNSS, the suspected satellites only did bursts because they’re suspected of just testing their system.
I deal with this every day with the dark fleet using four enterprise AIS tracking systems and can 100% confirm this is accurate about GNSS systems.
GPS satellites send at like 25W of power. Naively I would think you could make that 2.5kW on a satellite without issues, probably even more.
I watched the Veritasium episode on it just yesterday! The other theory is that it was actually being used for covert signals and the disruption was secondary.
I thought that was the cover story. They deliberately used a channel partially in the bandwidth for some deniability. It isn’t like they didn’t know what bandwidth GPS used when they designed the satellite.
last I checked that channel was owned by private equity so take it with a grain of salt
Considering the impact of these tests, that doesn’t seem likely. You wouldn’t be sending covert messages in a way that would be so heavily scrutinized. I know it was a theory presented during the video, but that’s just journalistic integrity.
And ultimately, even if they were covert messages, now they also know they can disrupt gps
I think the point was less about making the messages undetectable as it was about making them unjammable. In order to stop their transmission, we would have to essentially shut down GPS for the entire EU. So you might use that frequency to send critical, must-have messages.
Especially once a second signal was noticed that was almost exactly the frequency used by the Chinese GPS system, as mentioned in the Veritasium video.
Yes, that’s the video I watched. Good stuff.