Seapower - House Passes Bill for GPS Backup System, Icebreaker Study

News Article

By Richard R. Burgess

The House of Representatives has passed legislation to require the creation of a new navigation system to provide backup for the Global Positioning System (GPS) in the event it is degraded or destroyed. The same bill also provides for a study to lay down the advantages of a new heavy icebreaker fleet for the Coast Guard.

The bill was passed unanimously by the House on Sept. 26, according to a release from Rep. John Garamendi, D-Calif. -- the ranking member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Coast Guard and maritime transportation subcommittee -- who co-authored the bill with the subcommittee chairman, Duncan Hunter, R-Calif.

The legislation would require the Coast Guard to develop enhanced LORAN [Long-Range Navigation], called eLORAN, a ground-based electronic position, navigation and timing system that would supplement and serve as a backup to GPS for military and civilian use.

The eLORAN system would broadcast enhanced long-range signals from 19 towers around the country, each with approximately a 1,000-mile range providing overlapping fields that can be used by a platform to determine its location.

The heavy reliance on GPS for navigation and precision targeting would prove detrimental to U.S. warfighting capabilities if the system was sabotaged, degraded or destroyed. U.S. planners have been considering such challenges in recent years and have taken steps to develop alternative methods, including a return to training in celestial navigation at the U.S. Naval Academy, for example.

For decades, U.S. ships and aircraft have relied on the Coast Guard's LORAN network of ground hyperbolic radio transmitter stations worldwide. The system had fallen into disuse and the last stations in the United States and Canada were shut down in 2010. The ground-based Omega electronic navigation system was shut down in 1997, replaced by the GPS. In addition, the teaching of celestial navigation to Navy and Air Force flight navigators had ended more than a decade ago.

The subcommittee also has been advocating for the Coast Guard to build one or more heavy icebreakers to recapitalize the service's icebreaking capabilities, given that it currently fields only one operational heavy icebreaker and that the prospect for increased Coast Guard services in the Artic is growing.

"I am very pleased that the full House of Representatives has acted so quickly on the legislation passed by the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee last week," Garamendi said in the release. "Building a reliable backup for GPS signals in case of failure or sabotage and building a heavy icebreaker fleet for projecting American sovereignty in the Arctic are crucial national security priorities."

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