Pentagon urged not to use ability to degrade GPS signals

[The Straight Story]

Pentagon urged not to use ability to degrade GPS signals
By Bob Brewin [email protected] July 17, 2007

A newly formed multiagency advisory board argues that the Defense Department should never again intentionally degrade the performance of the Global Positioning System.

At its first meeting held in March, the National Space-Based Positioning Navigation and Timing (PNT) Advisory Board decided that, although the Air Force has the ability to degrade signals from the constellation of GPS satellites through a process known as "selective availability," board chairman and former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger says he "cannot conceive any scenario in which SA has any credibility today," according to minutes of the meeting, which the board released this month.

The last time Defense intentionally degraded the civilian signal was in 1990, and its reason for doing so was not made public. The Air Force intends to add the ability to degrade the signal in its next-generation GPS III satellites, which it plans to launch in 2013.

The PNT board includes members from the departments of Defense, Transportation, Commerce, State, Homeland Security, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff and NASA, as well as representatives from academia and U.S. industry. Representatives from Australia, India, Japan, Norway, Switzerland and Great Britain also sit on the board.

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