Europe should consider using its "civilian" Galileo satellite navigation system for military purposes as part of a drive to recover its escalating costs, Jacques Barrot, EU transport commissioner, has proposed. His suggestion could raise concern in Washington, which has long feared that Galileo could be used to provide military intelligence to potentially hostile regimes. China is one of the investors in the EU satellite system.
The author rebuts the claims made in a recent article about the Chinese challenge to the European Union's global positioning system.
The Indian government has approved spending 14.2 billion rupees ($316 million) to develop an independent regional satellite navigation system that would launch starting in 2008 and reduce the nation's dependence on the GPS system operated by the U.S. Department of Defense.
The United States could attack Europe's planned network of global positioning satellites if it was used by a hostile power such as China according to a new report.
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The U.S. Air Force is increasingly worried about hostile forces attempting to jam or blind critical military satellites during conflicts.
China and India have signed on to support the European Union's Galileo global satellite system in a bid to challenge American supremacy in space.
Space is becoming more multipolar as new countries (ex. China, Brazil) develop space capabilities and established space powers (ex. Russia, France) work to develop multipolar alternatives to U.S. commercial and military dominance in space.
Military and civilian researchers are paying increased attention to turbulence in Earth's ionosphere, which can weaken navigation, intelligence, and other signals until they vanish under useless noise. While solar storms can aggravate these effects, they can appear almost daily with or without a major solar eruption.
The Pentagon has proposed a power upgrade for the newest Global Positioning System satellites, which have yet to be launched, that would allow the transmission to military receivers of signals that are eight times more powerful those sent by the current generation of satellites. These boosted signals would be powerful enough to burn through electronic jamming put up by an adversary. American troops would not get lost and satellite-guided smart bombs would still find their targets.
Retired Lt. Colonel Thomas Adams surveys the vulnerabilities to the Global Positioning System including anti-satellite weapons and electronic jamming.