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UK military jamming other nations' satellites to defend itself, BBC told

171 points · 213 comments · thm

  1. gorgoiler · · focus · HN ↗
    Presumably when World War 3 kicks off the very first thing each adversary will do is knock out their opponents satellites? These are like flying lightbulbs that shine down usefulness from above, so step one is to cut the lights.

    Presumably-squared there is some kind of military backup to survive once the lights (GPS) go dark? Whatever that technology is, why hasn’t it proliferated into civilian life so that we all benefit from a resilient, non-GPS backup?

    Perhaps the answer is that every tank has a 10lb inertial navigation gyro or some other thingy in it as a backup, and the platoon around it uses the tank as a moving trig point? In that case I can see it being infeasible to deploy that for civilians.

    Perhaps-squared it’s just economics — GPS is cool and cheap now, so why burn profit margin on developing an alternative?

    1. para_parolu · · focus · HN ↗
      We may have enough satellite imagery to build visual place recognition system. Geoguesst but for tanks
      1. toast0 · · focus · HN ↗
        There's a bunch of stuff for using terrain to figure out where you are [1], generally used for missiles and planes though, not sure if works well from a ground perspective.

        On the ground, you might be able to use the broadcast positioning system: more or less GPS but instead of satellites, the broadcast signal comes from existing TV towers... TV towers may well be targetted at some point in a war, but there's likely more valuable targets at the beginning of a war.

        [1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;TERCOM" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;TERCOM

        [2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.gps.gov&#x2F;sites&#x2F;default&#x2F;files&#x2F;2025-06&#x2F;CGSICMeetings_Diamond_Sept2023.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.gps.gov&#x2F;sites&#x2F;default&#x2F;files&#x2F;2025-06&#x2F;CGSICMeeting...

        1. JumpCrisscross · · focus · HN ↗
          I’d assume one of the things you’d do in anticipation of a war of space-denial scale it bomb your own landscapes a bit for this reason.
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