• brianorca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    -18 months ago

    The bombs were probably using the encrypted military GPS frequencies that are more resistant to jamming.

    • circuscritic
      link
      fedilink
      English
      4
      edit-2
      8 months ago

      Encryption isn’t really a factor with this type of satellite navigation jamming, at least as far as I’m aware.

      Frequency hopping however can be a used as a RF jamming countermeasure, but I’m not sure if that is really for satellite navigation systems.

      The frequencies all satnav systems work on are also very specific and known. I would assume that any satnav jammers just jam all RF used by all GNSS constellations at once, but maybe they open up certain bands to allow for their own guided munitions at pre-scheduled times.

    • SuperJetShoes
      link
      fedilink
      English
      18 months ago

      As another commenter said, I don’t think cryptography is the main problem.

      You’ve got to be able to modulate some numbers out of the radio signal first before you need to be concerned if it’s encrypted or not.

      GPS signals from power conserving satellites are so weak that I’d imagine that overwhelming them with noise on all frequencies would be the easy answer. (Although there’s a Big Brain hyper-cunning answer to that…).

      • brianorca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        18 months ago

        Some GPS jammers are known to transmit, instead of noise, a bad signal which creates an offset in the timing to calculate a false position. But with encrypted military GPS, that’s not as effective.

        • circuscritic
          link
          fedilink
          English
          1
          edit-2
          8 months ago

          I don’t think PGMs with M-Code GPS capabilities are being provided to Ukraine, but that is definitely something well outside of my casual knowledge base, so I’m open to being corrected.