Reading guide: The U.S. Department of Defense hopes to invite seven countries to send military personnel to join its GPS all-weather operation center to further enhance the level of cooperation between its space military alliances.
Following the Schriever Xi at the end of March 2023, the U.S. Department of Defense said it wanted to invite seven of its closest allies — members of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance (Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom), plus France, Germany and Japan — to send military personnel to fight alongside the U.S. Space Force and participate in operational control of GPS satellites.
These countries have been participating in the Schriever space game Xi organized by the United States for many years, which Xi rehearsal space conflict scenarios. Inviting the Allies to join the GPS Operations Center takes this long-term partnership up a notch. When Allied personnel may actually appear at the GPS Operations Center depends on whether the invited countries are willing to accept the offer and how long it takes to organize this cooperative mission.
The U.S. Space Force's Delta Group 8 and Space Combat Squadron 2 (SOPS) command and control 38 GPS positioning, timing and navigation (PNT) satellites in orbit — including 31 active, one test and six standby. Now, the U.S. Space Force squadron will continue to use GPS, a massive space system, at the level of alliance partnerships.
The 2nd SOPS consists of 124 active-duty personnel, including 62 officers, 50 enlisted men, and 12 civilian personnel, and is located at the GPS "Main Control Station" (MCS). At the Vandenberg Space Force base in California, there is also a "backup" control station, essentially a "copy" of the MCS, consisting of the reserve personnel of the 19th SOPS.
SOP2 manages a worldwide network of computer monitoring stations and GPS satellite ground control antennas for day-to-day operations and troubleshooting. The ground station and its large antenna are located at: Cape Canaveral, FloridaAscension Island in the Atlantic Ocean;Diego Garcia Island in the Indian Ocean;and Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands of the Pacific Ocean. Thus, from these four positions, the USSF can see any of their satellites at the same time and can control any of their satellites as needed.
The monitoring station tracks the satellite's navigation signal and passes the information to the MCS, which continuously processes the data, determines the precise position of each satellite, and updates the satellite's navigation information through a ground antenna. The purpose of monitoring equipment is to ensure that the content transmitted is 100% accurate. If there are any deviations, such as a billionth of a second deviation, the operator can go and upload a more accurate time to ensure that the signal is as accurate as possible.
In addition to the main sensors used for PNT missions, GPS satellites carry an auxiliary nuclear detection system payload to detect nuclear-induced electromagnetic signals. Various GPS models (which have been updated over time) broadcast several different signals, some open to public radio waves, some reserved for military operations.
The most important task of GPS is not the location and detection of the nucleus** as most people think, but timing. The timing function, achieved through the high-precision atomic clock carried on board the satellite, is critical for scheduling aircraft landings and the operation of major U.S. dams. Many factors other than intentional interference from the enemy can also cause GPS signal anomalies, such as solar weather, atmospheric disturbances, or simply the rotation of the Earth, since it is not a perfect sphere. According to the US Space Force, in general, most of the interference detected is not due to interference, but other natural or accidental man-made causes.
There are currently 16 GPS monitoring stations around the world, and the 17th is being built near Perth, Australia. With the exception of Antarctica, there is one on every continent. At the Schriever Main Control Station (MCS), 10 members are on duty 365 days a year. The 10 people are both from the Space Force and the Air Force, and most of them are young people.
The 2nd SOPS also takes on military support tasks, supporting not only the US military, but also military users of the alliance and allies. Collaboration groups not only respond to calls for assistance, but also help military users plan their missions, suggest what routes to take to avoid GPS interference. They can also work with U.S. and allied commanders to ensure that the broadcast power level of military signals is increased to ensure connectivity in specific tasks where reliable reception of GPS signals is difficult, such as in mountains or jungles, or in the presence of GPS interference. If there are terrain features or dense foliage, they can optimize the GPS so that the user there can get the best quality signal to find the precise location.
The new version of the U.S. "Positioning, Navigation and Timing System Strategy" takes "ensuring the effective use of military GPS and other PNT services by the United States and its allies around the world" as one of the three tasks of the strategy. It is in the interest of the United States to ensure that cooperative actions support the objectives of the United States' space strategy and planning. The interests of the allies lie in the use of the vast space capabilities of the United States to establish collective security. On the one hand, this move is a big signal that the United States is more open to outer space information resources, and on the other hand, it can also help allies identify gaps and create more cooperation opportunities through small-scale cooperation. (Beijing Lande Information Technology***.)