Researchers documented at least 75 major interference incidents since 2019 and, for the first time, confirmed that the harmful signals originate from low Earth orbit rather than from ground-based radars. The European Union has conducted its own review of the incidents, but its findings remain classified.
Evidence tying Moscow to the space-based jamming was presented by Todd Humphreys, head of the Radionavigation Laboratory at the University of Texas at Austin, and experts from the Spanish technology company GMV led by Richard Bowden. Analysts examined three cases in detail in which satellite tracks clearly pointed to a Russian origin for the interference.
“Mr. Bowden also said intentional jamming signals typically look like random noise, whereas this signal is clearly structured and well designed,” the NYT wrote.
“The scientists have been unable to determine the Russians’ motives or if they even know whether their satellites’ signals are interfering with GPS services. But what concerns experts is that this activity — whether nefarious or incidental — can go on uninterrupted for years, and can disrupt a technology so foundational to the modern world.”
The detected Russian signal is highly structured, broadcast on frequencies immediately adjacent to the civilian GPS band and, because of its high power, can overwhelm the original U.S. GPS signal.
Anomalies were recorded across a vast area from Iceland to Italy. The disruptions usually last less than 10 seconds and have not caused disasters because modern devices typically switch to backup systems, but the ability to jam navigation across a continent is raising serious concerns among experts.
“The three satellites implicated in the interference studied by the scientists belong to a Russian constellation known as EKS, which is responsible for detecting missile launches and nuclear explosions around the world, according to Bart Hendrickx, a historian of the Russian space program,” the article said.
“Mr. Hendrickx and other experts said they would be
surprised if Russia was intentionally using these satellites for jamming,
because their primary purpose is to serve a much more critical function — they
are Russia’s only known early warning satellites.”