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Topic: Space Blog Brand: The Buzz Region: Americas Tags: China, Congress, GPS, North America, Satellites, United States, and US Space Force Congress Just Killed the Cheapest Way to Protect America’s GPS Satellites February 6, 2026 By: Brandon J. Weichert
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The US Space Force’s “Resilient GPS” program could have dramatically strengthened GPS reliability—at the same moment adversaries like China have sought to undermine it.
The United States is the most dominant spacefaring nation on the planet. But that power has been waning…and is now being challenged on all sides by multiple actors, ranging from rival states, like the People’s Republic of China, to private space firms from foreign countries seeking to gain an economic foothold in the budding private space sector.
As the most powerful spacefaring nation, with both a civilian and military infrastructure utterly reliant on space systems for the basic functions of American society, Washington has long taken America’s space defenses for granted. Yes, the creation of the United States Space Force (USSF) as an independent branch of the United States Armed Forces was a necessary move forward. But following that move, successive US administrations have made a series of missteps. One of the key missions for the USSF has been the defense of America’s vital-yet-vulnerable satellite constellations, any of which are targets of America’s enemies (notably China).
GPS Is the Backbone of Both Warfighting and Daily Life
One of the most important American satellite constellations is the Global Positioning System (GPS). Designed to provide efficient, pinpoint navigation on Earth for US military elements, the GPS has also become ubiquitous in the global economy. Our phones, cars, and so many other civilian technologies rely on this system as much as the US military does.
This system is also a tempting target for Chinese (and other rivals) counterspace capabilities. And there is no viable replacement for this constellation—though other nations are working on various alternatives, including Europe’s Galileo, Russia’s GLONASS, and China’s rapidly growing Beidou network in orbit.
In 2024, the USSF initiated the “Resilient GPS” (R-GPS) program to design a proliferated layer of small, low-cost navigation satellites that could augment the core GPS constellation. The idea was for dozens of cheaper satellites in lower orbits to broadcast GPS signals, potentially making the overall system harder to jam or disrupt (and increasing resiliency for military and civilian users), per Inside GNSS.
R-GPS “Phase Zero” Was Successful. The Space Force Pulled the Plug Anyway.
“Phase Zero” design contracts were awarded through a “Quick Start” design process to companies that included the likes of Astranis, Axient, L3Harris, and Sierra Space. USSF estimated costs of up to $1 billion over five years and around 20 satellites as a rough Fiscal Year 2025 projection.
Yet no funding for Phase One of the GPS-R program was provided in the FY2026 budget. In other words, the Space Force has officially cancelled this vital smallsat program, right as it was moving beyond the initial design and concept phase. There will be no on-orbit demonstrations or deployments.
The official reason is painful to read. According to GPS World, an online industry publication, the Department of the Air Force, which presides over the United States Space Force, had other strategic priorities that those funds were to be used for.
Meanwhile, Congress, which has spent decades ignoring the problem, decided to raise skepticism about the GPS-R program. They believed that simply adding more GPS satellites and bandwidth to the existing GPS constellation would not help to improve the actual resilience of the constellation.
The Notion of “Replacing GPS” Is a Fantasy
Instead, Congress thought that entirely new technologies in Position, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) could be developed to ultimately replace the GPS constellation with something newer while employing anti-jamming technologies to preserve the GPS constellation as it is.
No further funding was provided for either of those alternatives, of course. So, the GPS will remain vulnerable to counterspace attacks, and it will not have affordable redundancies on hand.
The USSF is now refocusing its efforts on what it has referred to as “core modernization” of the GPS constellation. The Space Force recently launched the ninth GPS III satellite at the end of January, which is itself part of the ongoing GPS III Block program. The newer GPS III satellites deliver stronger signals, better accuracy, and enhanced reliability compared with older blocks.
With these new Block III satellites, the USSF intends to include new anti-jam features, such as optical crosslinks and this might eventually change the way all satellites are designed for future constellations, according to the Air & Space Force Magazine.
So, while Congress didn’t provide funding for the smallsat initiative or for creating separate anti-jamming capacities for the GPS constellation, the Space Force is at least attempting some workaround. But the GPS-R program was the most direct, and likely the cheapest, pathway toward better protecting America’s essential GPS constellation from enemy attack and disruption.
Let us hope we do not come to regret such short-sightedness, as tensions between Beijing and Washington reach the highest levels they’ve been at in decades—and the Chinese contemplate how best to deliver a Space Pearl Harbor onto the United States.
About the Author: Brandon J. Weichert
Brandon J. Weichert is a senior national security editor at The National Interest. Weichert is the host of The National Security Hour on iHeartRadio, where he discusses national security policy every Wednesday at 8pm Eastern. He hosts a companion show on Rumble entitled “National Security Talk.” Weichert consults regularly with various government institutions and private organizations on geopolitical issues. His writings have appeared in numerous publications, among them Popular Mechanics, National Review, MSN, and The American Spectator. And his books include Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. Weichert’s newest book, A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine, is available for purchase wherever books are sold. He can be followed via Twitter/X @WeTheBrandon.
Image: Shutterstock / Andrei Armiagov.
The post Congress Just Killed the Cheapest Way to Protect America’s GPS Satellites appeared first on The National Interest.
Источник: nationalinterest.org