UNSW Surveying

HENSOLDT Introduces SkyBarrier GNSS Jamming System at Eurosatory
German defence electronics firm HENSOLDT unveiled SkyBarrier at Eurosatory 2026 in Paris on June 16, positioning the system as a mobile broadband jammer for satellite-based navigation signals. The company describes the system as an electronic countermeasure intended for armed forces and government agencies seeking to deny adversaries the use of navigation-dependent systems.
SkyBarrier is designed to jam all four major global navigation satellite systems simultaneously: GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, and BeiDou. HENSOLDT states the jamming effect covers both civilian and military signal variants, including encrypted signals, across the full range of currently relevant frequency and coding variants.
The system is built around rapid deployment: HENSOLDT says two operators can complete setup — including mast assembly and cabling — within minutes, with activation via a mechanical front-panel switch requiring no software configuration. The complete system consists of a single portable electronics unit, an extendable telescopic mast, and associated accessories.
Read more in Inside GNSS article.

HENSOLDT Introduces SkyBarrier GNSS Jamming System at Eurosatory - Inside GNSS - Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design German defense electronics firm HENSOLDT unveiled SkyBarrier at Eurosatory 2026 in Paris on June 16, positioning the system as a mobile broadband jammer for satellite-based navigation signals. The company describes the system as an electronic countermeasure intended for armed forces and government a

The Empty Field that Wasn’t: GPS, OTAD and Two Decades of Encrypted Broadcasts
Buried in every L1 C/A navigation message is Subframe 4, Page 17—a 176-bit field that IS-GPS-200 reserves for “special messages with the specific contents at the discretion of the Operating Command.” Every satellite broadcasts it. Every receiver decodes the subframe that contains it. And for nearly two decades, no one has publicly explained what it contains.
We analysed 12.16 million observations in this field from 2007 through early 2026. The content is not text. It is encrypted material consistent with the military’s Over-the-Air Distribution (OTAD) global rekeying network. For 19 years, every operational GPS satellite has been a numbers station—broadcasting ciphertext on a public channel, to billions of receivers, in plain sight.
If you build receivers, write firmware, run signal monitoring, or care about the gap between civil and military signal transparency, this is your field too. You just have not been reading it.
What follows is the story of how a forgotten 176-bit slot in the world’s most successful navigation signal turned out to be its quietest and most consequential broadcast—and how a few weeks of analysis on a laptop, applied to 19 years of public archive data, was enough to read its operational history off the bytes.
Read more in Inside GNSS article.

The Empty Field that Wasn't: GPS, OTAD and Two Decades of Encrypted Broadcasts - Inside GNSS - Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design What 12 million GPS special messages reveal about military rekeying on a public channel.  Cold War shortwave numbers stations broadcast strings of digits to anonymous listeners, content that’s meaningless to anyone without a matching one-time pad. They still operate today. As it turns out, GPS

A sophisticated GNSS system-on-chip design for secure positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) applications is the first fully European-based, end-to-end semiconductor manufacturing flow. Its manufacture demonstrates that security-critical chips for aerospace, defence and critical infrastructure can be designed, manufactured and delivered entirely within Europe.
The QLX3xx design targets sovereign GNSS-based PNT solutions for aerospace, defence and critical infrastructures — such as resilient timing and synchronisation networks and highly integrated, ultra-low-power GNSS receivers at the connected edge.
In a partnership co-funded by the European Chips Act, GlobalFoundries’ Dresden site is establishing its European sovereign manufacturing flow, consolidating every step of the production process — from design intake and mask services to wafer manufacturing — within the European Union. No sensitive design data or physical materials leave Europe, meeting the strict regulatory and security requirements of European governments, defence agencies, system integrators and critical infrastructure operators. Qualinx served as the launch customer.
Read more in GPS World article.

Chipmakers demonstrate European-only manufacture of security-critical GNSS chip - GPS World A sophisticated GNSS system-on-chip design for secure positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) applications is the first fully European-based, end-to-end

Why the FCC Must Reject Ligado’s Latest Plan
Aboard ships across the Persian Gulf this spring captains watched their navigation screens show supertankers circling over dry land, container ships drifting through nuclear power plants, and cargo vessels cutting across airport runways. None of it was real. All of it was the result of GPS spoofing.
GPS underpins almost everything in our economy from aviation and agriculture to finance and electric grids. The National Security Council has called it a single point of failure for U.S. critical infrastructure.
And it is increasingly under attack—not just in war zones. Aviation spoofing incidents rose 500 percent in 2024 and continue to climb. A trend International Air Transport Association Director General Willie Walsh has called “unacceptable and irresponsible.”
Against that backdrop, it is almost unbelievable that six years ago this April, the Federal Communications Commission approved a plan from Ligado Networks that was opposed by virtually every GPS-dependent industry and the entire executive branch, including the Departments of Defense and Transportation. Ligado’s own inability to get its proposed terrestrial network off the ground is the only thing that has spared GPS from harmful interference. But now the company is pivoting, and it wants the FCC to approve a new “partnership” with AST SpaceMobile that poses additional risks.
The new plan abandons the terrestrial deployment entirely.
Read more in the following article.

Why the FCC Must Reject Ligado’s Latest Plan - Broadband Breakfast - RNTF Image: RNT Foundation What's new: It has been six years since the FCC ruled in favor of Ligado. Now Ligado wants to change almost everything about the

Russian Satellites Have Been Jamming GPS Signals Across Europe, Scientists Say
Russian satellites have caused seconds-long GPS outages across Europe on several occasions, according to new research provided to The New York Times by scientists who specialise in GPS technology and a person familiar with a U.S. Air Force briefing on the jamming.
The Times has also learned that the European Union has conducted an investigation into the incidents, though its results are classified, a spokesperson said.
The findings are part of a research paper published on Thursday by Todd Humphreys, head of the Radionavigation Laboratory at the University of Texas at Austin, as well as research conducted separately by Richard Bowden and fellow navigation experts at the large Spanish technology firm GMV.
Together they concluded that in at least three of the 75 instances they identified since 2019, the interference originated from Russian satellites. While they suspect the remaining cases implicate the same Russian network, they say the available data is not granular enough to pinpoint the culprit. But in all the incidents the same type of signal appears to be causing the interference. Mr. Bowden also said intentional jamming signals typically look like random noise, whereas this signal is clearly structured and well designed.
Read more in the following article.

Russian Satellites Have Been Jamming GPS Signals Across Europe, Scientists Say (Gift Article) Scientists and U.S. military briefers have linked short, widespread interference incidents to Russia, revealing vulnerabilities in a technology essential to everyday society.

A recent spoofing and jamming incident at the LA/Long Beach VTIS shows this growing threat isn’t just a problem in conflict zones.
It’s late at night, January 29, 2026. Most of Southern California is asleep. Ships approaching Long Beach harbor from the West key their mics on VHF channel 14 and report GNSS outages to LA/Long Beach Vessel Traffic Service (VTIS). Aircraft over the Channel Islands squawk the same via ADS-B. NOAA Continuously Operating Reference Station (CORS) sites record anomalies in L1 and L2 signal-to-noise ratios. All of this within an hour. While spoofing and jamming of GNSS have been recurring issues in conflict zones, incidents like this show no one is immune.
Automatic Identification System (AIS) reports from at least 7 vessels indicate position jumps indicative of spoofing. At least one vessel’s AIS system ceased transmitting altogether for nearly an hour, likely due to an invalid GNSS solution. Data indicates this event covered greater than a 100-mile area, including the critical LA/Long Beach Traffic Separation Scheme. All of the documented GNSS anomalies occurred within one hour, but the most dramatic position jumps shown by AIS messages lasted only several minutes. The short duration of the event is the only factor that prevented greater impact on PNT and limited public awareness of the event.
Read more in Inside GNSS article.

LA/Long Beach VTIS Records Spoofing Event in January 2026 GPS Test Window - Inside GNSS - Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design A recent spoofing and jamming incident at the LA/Long Beach VTIS shows this growing threat isn’t just a problem in conflict zones.  It’s late at night, January 29, 2026. Most of Southern California is asleep. Ships approaching Long Beach harbor from the West key their mics on VHF channel 14 and

Murata Manufacturing Co. Ltd. and Xona Space Systems have signed a memorandum of understanding to improve the accuracy and reliability of satellite PNT technologies.
The companies will explore the potential to provide optimal products and solutions by combining Murata’s long-standing expertise in high-frequency and wireless communications, sensors, timing devices and module design with Xona’s advanced low-Earth-orbit (LEO)-based positioning and timing synchronization technologies.
Because LEO satellites orbit closer to Earth, they can deliver stronger signals to the ground, which improves signal reception in city centres and indoor environments. Their higher orbital speed compared with GNSS enables observation data in a shorter period of time, which enhances performance in urban areas via accelerated convergence times and reduction in multipath errors.
Read more in GPS World article.

Murata and Xona Space sign MOU on LEO satnav for industrial applications - GPS World Murata Manufacturing Co. Ltd. and Xona Space Systems have signed a memorandum of understanding to improve the accuracy and reliability of satellite PNT

The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) has launched Merkhet Solutions, an independent company focused on the commercial deployment of the Broadcast Positioning System (BPS).
BPS, first conceived by the technology team at NAB in 2021, is a patented terrestrial, GPS-independent timing and positioning technology that leverages the high-power, geographically diverse broadcast infrastructure already covering the United States.
BPS has been designed to address the more than $1 billion-per-day economic and national security risk posed by overreliance on GPS. Merkhet Solutions is engaging across critical infrastructure sectors, including energy, data centres, telecommunications and financial services – where a loss of precision time can trigger grid instability, outages and lost trades.
“BPS represents a powerful intersection of innovation, public safety and opportunity for broadcasters,” said NAB President and CEO Curtis LeGeyt. “Launching Merkhet Solutions is the next step in commercialising this technology and ensuring it reaches the critical-infrastructure operators who need it most, while continuing to create meaningful long-term opportunities for local stations.”
Read more in GPS World article.

Broadcasters launch company to advance Broadcast Positioning System - GPS World The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) has launched Merkhet Solutions, an independent company focused on the commercial deployment of the Broadcast

The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) today announced the launch of Merkhet Solutions, Inc., an independent company focused on the commercial deployment of the Broadcast Positioning System (BPS™). BPS, first conceived by the technology team at NAB in 2021, is a patented terrestrial, GPS-independent timing and positioning technology that leverages the high-power, geographically diverse broadcast infrastructure already covering the United States.
BPS has been designed to address the more than $1 billion-per-day economic and national security risk posed by overreliance on GPS, and Merkhet Solutions is engaging across critical infrastructure sectors, including energy, data centres, telecommunications and financial services – where a loss of precision time can trigger grid instability, outages and lost trades.
"BPS represents a powerful intersection of innovation, public safety and opportunity for broadcasters,” said NAB President and CEO Curtis LeGeyt. “Launching Merkhet Solutions is the next step in commercialising this technology and ensuring it reaches the critical infrastructure operators who need it most, while continuing to create meaningful long-term opportunities for local stations."
“BPS solves a problem we can no longer afford to ignore: an entire economy and national security posture resting on a single, contested signal from space,” said Merkhet Solutions CEO Sam Matheny. “We built BPS at NAB because broadcast infrastructure is uniquely suited to deliver assured terrestrial timing at scale. We're launching Merkhet Solutions because the time to operationalise this technology is now."
Read more in the following article.
https://www.merkhetsolutions.com/news/merkhet-solutions-launch

FIG announces new president and host city of 2030 Congress
Following a vote held at the XXVIII FIG Congress in Cape Town, South Africa, Michalis Kalogiannakis of Greece has been elected president of the International Federation of Surveyors (FIG) for the 2027 to 2030 term. He was chosen over Mikael Lilje of Sweden in the presidential race.
Winnie Shiu (Hong Kong, SAR China), Stephen Djaba (Ghana) and Peter Ache (Germany) were elected as vice presidents. Across multiple rounds of voting, they were chosen over three other candidates: Ganesh Prasad Bhatta of Nepal, Tim Burch of the USA, and Angel Collado of Spain.
In a separate vote, Qingdao, China secured the right to host the XXIX FIG Congress in 2030, defeating the Spanish city of Sevilla by a large majority. The Chinese coastal city has established itself as a national leader in geospatial innovation, making it a natural fit for the global surveying community.
Read more in GIM International article.

FIG announces new president and host city of 2030 Congress Following a vote held at the XXVIII FIG Congress in Cape Town, South Africa, Michalis Kalogiannakis of Greece has been elected president of the Intern...