Leaping Ahead: Securing America's Future with a 5G-Based Backup to GPS

Summary

The United States has built vast military, economic, and civilian infrastructures on the backbone of the Global Positioning System (GPS). It’s more than just a tool to help families get to the beach: GPS underpins telecommunications networks, electric grids, banking systems, and transportation. It guides everything from precision munitions to farming equipment to, of course, everyday smartphone navigation. 

Our country’s near-total reliance on a single, space-based technology has created a dangerous risk. If the United States loses access to GPS through jamming, spoofing or kinetic attack, we are more than just inconvenienced. Our military loses targeting, timing, and command capabilities. Our ships and trucks will reach their destinations much more slowly. Farmers, who have grown to rely upon GPS for successful planting and field maintenance, will be hindered. Without GPS, airplanes will be unable to take off and land safely.

In short, a successful disruption of GPS could cripple both national defense and the economy in a matter of hours. And yet, there is currently no American terrestrial (also known as ground-based) complement or backup to GPS, despite its adversaries abroad building layered redundancies on both sea and land.