VZGLYAD / To turn off GPS Russia has long been freed :: Society
A new stage of anti-Russian detentions may be the disconnection of the inhabitants of our country from the American GPS satellite navigation system. We all actually use her services. It is unlikely that this is a threat, and why is the US doing so much more harm to itself in this case?
The GPS positioning system has long passed into the category of something taken for granted. Turning on a mobile phone to determine their location, users do not even think about the number and supply of these satellite coordinates, how this happens and why two decades ago, the location accuracy was less than now.
And now, as the head of Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin has been officially appointed, the United States is seriously study Possibility of saving Russia from the GPS system. As part of, of course, regular anti-Russian meetings. The threat of this is taken quite seriously in Russia, and, for example, the Federal Air Transport Agency uses the initiative to fly without the use of the global navigation satellite system (GPS).
How GPS works
Understanding the capability and complexity of a GPS system over a single country requires understanding how the system works. In orbit, there are several satellites in constant motion, emitting a synchronized radio signal. The user’s receiver must receive a signal from at least four satellites in order to accurately determine the point at which it is located. Three satellites is not enough, otherwise we count without the “height” value.
The receiver itself in a smartphone or navigator does not emit anything. It receives only the signal, determines how long it takes for the signal from which satellite it reaches, and based on the calculations found, determines the exact coordinate of the place.
There is a third component – ground stations located on the surface of the planet. The fact is that the Earth is not quite the right ball, therefore, it requires correction and refinement of the predicted position of spacecraft in order to increase the operation of the device. These measurements are ground stations, they calculate the exact location of the satellites, which are entered in the almanac and calculated on the devices. Without ground sensors and their constant operation, the accuracy of determining coordinates decreases. The change in the satellite’s orbit will have a gradually increasing error in orientation accuracy.
Now about the number of satellites. A total of 24 spacecraft are required to operate the system. Reducing the number will create places where the geolocation system will perform worse than it should. Currently, the GPS system has 32 spacecraft in orbit, GLONASS has 25 (23 are in use), there are also global Chinese Beidou and European Gallileo.
Modern chips are used immediately from all systems. It is easy to verify this by installing the GPS program on a mobile phone: it shows how many satellites and which systems see and use the phone in time conditions.
Can GPS be used?
To begin with, let’s decide what specifically and in some area we turn off. Very often, when we talk about GPS, we do not mean only the American satellite system, but we usually use this term to refer to all geolocation systems.
It is simply impossible to turn off all systems, including the Russian GLONASS, without starting the third world will and shooting all the satellites. Americans use their own system – GPS. By the way, twenty years ago, the American geopositioning system has two different radio signals – less accurate for simple devices and more accurate for the military.
The military code was larger than the duration PRN code measurement in order to be difficult to jam and to avoid range collisions (for an observed GPS signal, this range value is about 300 km). The military code was more accurate due to a ten times higher baseband frequency, 10.23 MHz versus 1.023 MHz.
Can this be done over an organ? No. Approximately each satellite “carries” its signal to the Earth’s surface measuring 4,000 by 4,000 kilometers. Therefore, even if the signal is turned off during the passage of spacecraft over the surface of Russia, it is possible to leave Europe and many other neighboring countries without a normal signal.
Americans can turn off ground stations operating in Russia. Yes, this measure is real. But, as previously observed, it can manifest itself slightly to insignificant propagation of signals, and then, if a device is used, it works exclusively with the GPS system. In the case of offsetting signals from other satellites, a system for making the necessary corrections.
There is another option – the introduction of interference using a ground station. But this can only take place at the borders of countries in the aggregate and with the help of EW formations of other countries. But if such foci appear on the territory of Russia, we can assume that we have practically a “causus belli”. After all, not only navigators, both household and, for example, aviation, can suffer from such an action, but also security systems (APCS) in a variety of industries.
Therefore, disabling GPS is an exceptional threat. If it is used, some system used in Russia may be more painful than the usual navigators in smartphones. Those, as has already happened, in most cases use all possible systems for greater significance.
Yes, the infested United States occasionally conduct exercises that destroyed the GPS system under countermeasures and require the use of inertial positioning systems. But it’s more of a hazard check, carried out by the actual GPS detection strategy and the actions taken in individual cases in the country. In reality, there is a chance that someone will turn off their system, albeit in the territory of detection, very little – too many bad consequences, and the benefit is not obvious. Russian ordinary citizens continue to use GLONASS.
Because we are pilots?
Then, on the instructions of the Federal Air Transport Agency, the State Air Traffic Control Corporation, assistance was drawn to the crews of aircraft with GPS turned off? Why were pilots advised to immediately notify air traffic controllers of combat, deterioration, and abnormal performance of GPS and related avionics? In addition, the agency uses carriers to assess the risks and limitations associated with malfunctions of navigation instruments and aircraft systems using the GPS system. Is everything that bad?
The main reason for the instruction is the message of the EU Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), after February 24, cases of “jamming” and possible substitution of GPS signals (spoofing) became more frequent. They observed various cases of air travel in the Kaliningrad region, considered the countries of the Baltic Sea, in the eastern part of Finland, in the Black Sea, in the Eastern Mediterranean region, Israel, Cyprus, Lebanon, diseases, Turkey and northern Iraq.
It would be strange to link these events even with the theoretical possibility of a warning to turn off GPS in Russia or somewhere else. Most likely, this simply coincided with the voiced third-party threats or possible factors.
What to do in this case? Should I be afraid of possible GPS detection? No – in full.
Firstly, a point shutdown of this system is impossible, and an attempt to use the signal during the flight of satellites over the territory of Russia led to a huge number of problems for Russia’s random neighbors on the planet and for the United States itself. And secondly, GLONASS, created in its time and used now, became the best vaccine against the serious consequences of such an incident for the United States. Navigator in the phone remains operational.