DoD weapons testers to evaluate cybersecurity of GPS satellites, floor program and user products – SpaceNews
WASHINGTON — The Protection Department’s weapons screening office environment will assess the functionality and cybersecurity of the U.S. World Positioning Process as an “enterprise” that contains the GPS constellation in orbit but also the ground regulate program and the products employed to get GPS information.
DoD’s place of work of operational screening and evaluation in its newest once-a-year report launched Jan. 27 reported it strategies to start out a cyber assessment of the GPS floor management program recognized as OCX in late 2022, followed by the original operational testing of the GPS company in 2023.
Increasing threats to U.S. place techniques “warrant an suitable cyber evaluation of the GPS enterprise, to include things like GPS cars prior to launch,” mentioned the report, written Nickolas Guertin, the Protection Department’s director of operational take a look at and evaluation.
How to adequately exam GPS in opposition to probable threats has been a prolonged-time concern of the DoD testing workplace. DoD testers have pointed out in preceding reports that the GPS satellites, the ground command method and the person receivers must be tested as an built-in organization rather than as different components. They observed that when army forces deploy in combat, they will need all segments of GPS to carry out as an built-in procedure.
The report mentioned the U.S. Space Force’s GPS software office “continues to build a area menace program to adequately examine the survivability of the whole GPS company in a contested place setting that incorporates kinetic engagements, cyber, electromagnetic spectrum fires, nuclear, and directed electrical power weapons.”
The GPS constellation of 31 satellites orbits the Earth at an altitude of 20,000 kilometers and is operated by the U.S. House Power like a global utility, broadcasting positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) indicators that are important to the day by day performing of the civilian economic climate and critical to every single aspect of navy operations. The newer GPS 3 satellites broadcast a more powerful signal termed M-code, small for army code.
Guertin in the report famous that “full handle of modernized civil and M-code indicators and navigation warfare functions, as well as enhanced cybersecurity, continue on to be delayed owing to ongoing progress and deployment delays of the up coming generation operational regulate process (OCX), along with delays in the fielding of M-code able receivers for use by the U.S. and allied warfighters.”
Since of the complex nature and variety of anti-satellite threats, DoD will need to have to make investments in a lot more advanced testing infrastructure, Guertin wrote.
“Critical DoD house property are perhaps topic to a assortment of adversarial assaults, including directed electrical power weapons, kinetic threats, cyberattacks, electromagnetic spectrum fires, and nuclear weapons. To sufficiently evaluate the survivability of U.S. area programs versus this sort of engagements and mitigate any recognized vulnerabilities, the Office involves house vary infrastructure, instrumentation, and superior fidelity-menace surrogates.”
WASHINGTON — The Protection Department’s weapons screening office environment will assess the functionality and cybersecurity of the U.S. World Positioning Process as an “enterprise” that contains the GPS constellation in orbit but also the ground regulate program and the products employed to get GPS information.
DoD’s place of work of operational screening and evaluation in its newest once-a-year report launched Jan. 27 reported it strategies to start out a cyber assessment of the GPS floor management program recognized as OCX in late 2022, followed by the original operational testing of the GPS company in 2023.
Increasing threats to U.S. place techniques “warrant an suitable cyber evaluation of the GPS enterprise, to include things like GPS cars prior to launch,” mentioned the report, written Nickolas Guertin, the Protection Department’s director of operational take a look at and evaluation.
How to adequately exam GPS in opposition to probable threats has been a prolonged-time concern of the DoD testing workplace. DoD testers have pointed out in preceding reports that the GPS satellites, the ground command method and the person receivers must be tested as an built-in organization rather than as different components. They observed that when army forces deploy in combat, they will need all segments of GPS to carry out as an built-in procedure.
The report mentioned the U.S. Space Force’s GPS software office “continues to build a area menace program to adequately examine the survivability of the whole GPS company in a contested place setting that incorporates kinetic engagements, cyber, electromagnetic spectrum fires, nuclear, and directed electrical power weapons.”
The GPS constellation of 31 satellites orbits the Earth at an altitude of 20,000 kilometers and is operated by the U.S. House Power like a global utility, broadcasting positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) indicators that are important to the day by day performing of the civilian economic climate and critical to every single aspect of navy operations. The newer GPS 3 satellites broadcast a more powerful signal termed M-code, small for army code.
Guertin in the report famous that “full handle of modernized civil and M-code indicators and navigation warfare functions, as well as enhanced cybersecurity, continue on to be delayed owing to ongoing progress and deployment delays of the up coming generation operational regulate process (OCX), along with delays in the fielding of M-code able receivers for use by the U.S. and allied warfighters.”
Since of the complex nature and variety of anti-satellite threats, DoD will need to have to make investments in a lot more advanced testing infrastructure, Guertin wrote.
“Critical DoD house property are perhaps topic to a assortment of adversarial assaults, including directed electrical power weapons, kinetic threats, cyberattacks, electromagnetic spectrum fires, and nuclear weapons. To sufficiently evaluate the survivability of U.S. area programs versus this sort of engagements and mitigate any recognized vulnerabilities, the Office involves house vary infrastructure, instrumentation, and superior fidelity-menace surrogates.”