Introduction
Since the inception of the American Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), the Global Positioning System (GPS), the constellation’s governance has primarily been military. In contrast, China’s GNSS, BeiDou, has just reached full global coverage and has an emphasis on political and economic gains, alongside military uses. In her work “China’s BeiDou: New Dimensions of Great Power Competition,” Dr. Sarah Sewall notes that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) looks at GNSS capabilities more broadly than the US and is also pushing for other countries to adopt BeiDou for civilian uses.
Europe’s constellation, Galileo, much like BeiDou, reached full global coverage in the last few years. From an American perspective, the European GNSS is an interesting case study, as it was conceived with many of the same underlying values as the Americans, but with a dierent civilian form of governance. From a European perspective, GPS is of interest as the technical gold standard in GNSS, but also because of its military governance. Indeed, in the wake of the war in Ukraine, the European Union (EU) has a renewed interest in defense applications. Both sides have complementary perspectives and can learn from each other to acquire a more holistic perspective of the potential of GNSS capabilities.
As GPS celebrates fifty years of global leadership in GNSS, it is a timely moment to evaluate its past successes, current issues, and future perspectives for successful development in the next half-century. This paper aims to compare the GPS and Galileo systems, drawing insights from an interview with two GNSS experts of the European Commission. It seeks to answer the question of how the United States and Europe could learn from each other and strengthen their GNSS cooperation.
Fifty Years of GNSS
Last December, the United States celebrated the 50th anniversary of the creation of GPS, the world’s first GNSS. At the 2023 National Space Council Meeting, Gen. Chris Grady, Vice-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Sta, recognized the essential role the technology has played over the last half-century for the United States.
Originally designed for military purposes, this infrastructure has since then been opened up to civil and commercial uses around the world. As the global GNSS landscape evolves, it introduces new dynamics to great power competition. The following explores in more detail the past developments, current state of aairs, and future outlook of the GNSS landscape.
History of GPS
From its inception, GPS was imagined at the Pentagon by the US Department of Defense in 1973. Five years later, the first satellites were launched.
On September 1, 1983, the civilian Korean Air Lines Flight 007 from New York City to Seoul entered into prohibited Soviet airspace, due to a navigational error. Thinking it was a US spy plane, USSR Air Forces shot the commercial flight down. Tragically, all 269 passengers were killed in the crash, including United States Congressman Larry McDonald. This incident escalated Cold War tensions but also led to the Reagan Administration making GPS PNT data freely available for global civilian use. The immediate intention was to improve civil aviation, which it did, but it especially spurred a leap in civil and commercial uses of PNT data worldwide. This cutting-edge technology, in eect, became a public good overnight, one of America’s “Great gifts to the world”.
It was only several years later, in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, that GPS demonstrated its true worth on the battlefield. In what was later deemed the first “Space War”, PNT data played a critical role in orienting US troops through the desert and guiding precision missile strikes. While the technology proved itself to be a key asset, it also faced the first interference with its signal, called “jamming”. 4 While the impetus for the development of these systems was primarily military, the dual-use potential of GNSS was quickly becoming apparent, notably through the introduction of the first in-car navigation systems throughout the 1990s.
At this point, there were two separate signals for military and civilian purposes. The civilian one was intentionally degraded, as part of a policy referred to as selective availability. This policy was discontinued in 2000 by the Clinton Administration. Since then, hundreds of innovative applications have been invented, so much so that GPS has become a catch-all term for all navigation systems today.
Essential, but Silent Infrastructure
Over the last fifty years of GNSS, the world has far expanded the capabilities and uses of PNT data; it now undergirds so many of the products and services of everyday life. From ATMs to weather forecasts, from search and rescue services to flight control, there are countless applications. While private actors have become involved in other space technologies, GNSS, as a critical infrastructure, has remained a public service space technology. Even though the technology has matured, it is showing no sign of slowing down. As of 2019, it is estimated that the technology has generated over $1.4 trillion in economic benefits for the United States alone.
GNSS in a way is becoming a victim of its success, as the world has a high and increasing reliance on the technology. In addition, as more and more companies and applications rely on these systems, the financial risk of an outage is growing. It is estimated that an outage of the GPS system alone would have an economic impact of $1 billion per day. It is a free public service to the world, yet there is little awareness about the cost incurred by governments to provide global PNT data. As such, it is often considered to be a silent infrastructure.
In the long fifty-year history of the technology, there have not been any large-scale significant accidents or outages of GNSSs. However, it is not because it hasn’t yet happened that the risk does not exist. Between jamming, spoofing, and the development of space weapons, the threats posed to GNSS are as high as ever.
Development of other GNSS
Following the United States, the former USSR launched its own GNSS, GLONASS, in 1982. 8 Between the scope of the project and the collapse of the Soviet bloc, it took many years to reach global coverage. In 1995, the Russian Federation saw the full deployment of the world’s second GNSS.
Despite some opposition from the United States, Europe was next with the creation of its own constellation - Galileo - which was fully operational in 2016. 9 In 1999, the European Union began imagining creating its own GNSS. The United States at first expressed security concerns about the program and possible interference with GPS, and after funding diculties, nearly two decades later Galileo was fully operational.
China followed suit and reached global coverage through its GNSS, BeiDou, in 2020. 10At the time, the world was focused on the COVID-19 pandemic, so the full deployment did not garner much attention. It was no less significant and introduced new dimensions of great power competition between China and the USA. While the United States benefits from a long head start. The Chinese constellation is more modern and has several key features, such as its two-way messaging capabilities, and high-performing ground infrastructure. BeiDou strengthens China’s geopolitical stance on the world stage and sets a contrast to GPS. While the constellation is especially focused on military capabilities, it does take a broader view to include civilian uses as well. BeiDou notably serves as a foundation to undergird 5G telecommunications and critical infrastructure of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and related Digital Silk Road (DSR). As such, the constellation strengthens China’s economic and political soft power. Over time, an overreliance on BeiDou could lead to technical manipulations or surveillance risks.
Galileo, a Natural Partner for GPS
The Europeans have developed their constellation with particular attention to commercial and political uses of Galileo. As the West reconsiders common defense and security policy, in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, 11 both Americans and Europeans have very complementary perspectives on GNSS and stand to learn from each other.
Governance
Unlike GPS, GLONASS, or BeiDou, Galileo was designed as a civil infrastructure, which is reflected in its governance structure. At its inception in 2006, the EU even questioned whether there might be potential for commercialization of Galileo’s PNT data. At that time, it considered a Public Private Partnership (PPP) governance structure. In the end, the Union opted for full government ownership of the constellation and associated ground infrastructure.
As a supranational entity, the European Commission owns fairly few assets, relative to other government entities; however, in the case of Galileo, it was considered necessary. As one of the most important assets and technological feats of the Union, the program is a strong symbol of European construction.
The original political impetus for the creation of Galileo came from the European Union, which is still reflected in the program’s governance to this day with the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union in charge of the political overview of Galileo to this day
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