The head of the RAF says the UK faces "unprecedented threats" from adversaries in space, as a new unit is created to defend Britain's satellites.
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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?
For most things the fallback is going to be everything we used to use. Maps, stellar navigation, inertial navigation that sort of thing.
Guided weapons wise, terrain mapping is pretty common for cruise missiles. Storm Shadow, for example uses GPS, terrain and inertial guidance systems. Trident uses inertia and stellar navigation.
As for why it hasn't proliferated into civilian use? Mostly it has its just the old things. You can perfectly well drive your car with a road map and sign posts. Pilots still train to use dead reckoning and beacons. Etc.
I had an old colleague who in a previous life worked on an incredibly accurate positioning system that was effectively a brief case that knew where it was at all times. The story he told was the DoD made them an offer they couldn't refuse, and everything became secret. I'm pretty sure the company in question is still in business.
I'm not trying to say it's not legal but it might not exactly be legal?
In a true Kessler scenario where LEO is denied for an extended period of time, I expect a variation of that strategy is how we would replace GPS for most civilian use cases. Likely by using cell towers to triangulate, possibly enhanced with additional transmitters to improve accuracy and coverage. Pure cell tower triangulation would have much worse coverage than GPS, obviously especially in rural areas where cell service is often already poor, but also anywhere that getting a signal from multiple towers isn't easy or possible. Cell towers are never distant enough to use the relativity-based timing tricks GPS relies on, so multiple signals would be required to triangulate. We'd likely end up with substantially less precise positioning, maybe something more on the order of the 10-20m of error we used to see with GPS before the US stopped limiting civilian access to the deaccuratized version. Cell tower triangulation also obviously doesn't work for aviation or oceanic shipping, where trident-like inertial+stellar nav would probably be the only workable option.
”Using fire to signify a message is thousands of years old. The earliest use of beacons in the UK dates back to the medieval period, primarily as a means of communication to warn of impending invasions or other dangers. Positioned on hilltops and along coastlines, these beacons were part of an early warning system signalling the presence of a threat, such as an approaching enemy fleet.
One of the most famous early examples is the network of beacons used during the Spanish Armada in 1588. As around 150 Spanish battleships approached, beacons were lit along the southern coast of England, from Cornwall to London. As a result of this rudimentary but effective system Lord Francis Drake had the time to mobilise the country’s defences and defeat the Spanish fleet before they were able to reach the English shore.”
[1] https://www.paintersforstal.co.uk/news/the-history-of-beacon...
Pretty sure the Spanish Armada was <150 total ships, of which only a small subset would be the big galleon things. (And then my knowledge hits a wall, idk what the difference between a galleon and ship-of-the-line/battleship is)
I'm not sure how much to trust the rest of that website.
https://interestingengineering.com/military/us-military-nail...
We're also going to need a prompt launch capability to replace attrition losses. There should be warehouses full of spare navigation, reconnaissance, and communications satellites ready to mount on a reusable booster and launch within hours. Concerns have been raised over a "Kessler syndrome" due to orbital debris but in lower orbits with significant atmospheric drag this won't be a serious problem.
I doubt officers or crew would ever have to resort to a sextant, but that's besides the point. It's the type of thing that's integral to learning navigation theory and building tacit knowledge that's fundamental to the job.
EDIT: 2016 article discussing restoration of traditional navigation instruction: https://www.npr.org/2016/02/22/467210492/u-s-navy-brings-bac...
That presumes we're not already in it. When historians 100 years from now look back on this period, what's going to be the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand? What's going to be the Reichstag fire of 2027?
https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2025/may/10/...
We will have to kiss goodbye to any future space launches, existing satellites are likely to get knocked out and ultimately our frontier space era will grind to a hault.
Veritasium did a video on it recently https://youtu.be/tz23G_UXCGA
So, who's the UK actually attacking?
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