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Experts have revealed a terrifying domino effect that could take place if GPS suddenly stopped working around the world.
This comes after new research has uncovered a worrying source of GPS disruption that experts say could highlight just how vulnerable the modern world is.
While GPS outages are usually associated with military activity, scientists have now identified a series of unusual interference events that appear to have originated from space, raising fresh concerns about the security of critical infrastructure.
Now, in a new paper, Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) specialist Todd E. Humphreys, who is the head of the Radionavigation Laboratory at the University of Texas at Austin, alongside a team of researchers are investigating unexplained GPS disruptions.
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The paper ‘analyzes and identifies a space-based Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) interference source that has caused scores of powerful transient wide-area interference events’ detected simultaneously across vast areas including Europe, Greenland and parts of Canada since 2019.
The disruptions were typically short-lived, lasting between three and five seconds, but the sheer geographical scale of the events caught researchers' attention.
Scientists concluded that the disturbances could not have been caused by a single ground-based transmitter or aircraft but instead point to a source located in space.
The researchers noted that most of the disruptions happened during weekdays and standard business hours, a pattern they say suggests human involvement rather than a naturally occurring phenomenon.
According to a report by Sky News, some experts believe that a Russian satellite network was identified as responsible for the disruptions, although the intent behind them is not clear. Russia has also previously denied carrying out GPS jamming activities.
The paper went on to conclude: “Further analysis pointed to the Russian Edinaya Kosmicheskaya Sistema, an early warning constellation to which Cosmos 2546 belongs, as collectively responsible for the wide-area transient interference causing GNSS degradation across Europe since 2019.”
Experts are warning that a widespread loss of GPS could trigger a domino effect across multiple industries.
Aircraft and ships would lose a key source of positioning data, mobile phone networks could experience timing issues, and banking systems could face disruptions.
Meanwhile, Power networks, which depend on timing signals from GPS, could struggle to maintain stable operations.
While backup systems do exist for many sectors, specialists are sounding the alarm that society is becoming more and more reliant on satellite navigation tech, which causes more issues when things go wrong.
