Report: Pentagon Can’t Forget About PNT for Golden Dome

The Pentagon should establish a dedicated budget to support its Golden Dome missile defense shield’s positioning, navigation, and timing needs and assign a PNT lead to coordinate needed improvements to ground and space-based navigation systems, according to a new report from the National Security Space Association. 

The organization’s space-focused think tank, the Moorman Center, argues in a Nov. 4 report that PNT capabilities are critical to Golden Dome’s ability to track targets, guide interceptors, and command and control a complex network of missile defense systems. The Department of the Defense, the report states, should recognize this dependency and invest accordingly. 

“Urgent investments in a national, resilient PNT architecture with at least two or three sources that have markedly different failure modes are needed to address and mitigate known vulnerabilities of GPS and other systems, while bolstering the effectiveness of Golden Dome,” James Frelk, vice chair of the Moorman Center for Space Studies, writes. 

The Pentagon has yet to publicly release a detailed plan for Golden Dome, an advanced missile defense shield that the White House has projected will cost $175 billion to field over the next three years. That price tag is likely to grow as the Defense Department validates and fields more advanced elements of that architecture like space-based interceptors. Whatever shape the program ultimately takes, a robust position, navigation, and timing capability is needed, NSSA argues.

The report identifies potential vulnerabilities across the Defense Department’s PNT enterprise as well as opportunities to upgrade existing systems or leverage commercial alternatives. The GPS constellation, a mix of 31 legacy and modern satellites in medium-Earth orbit, is vulnerable to all kinds of enemy attack from anti-satellite weapons to signal jamming and other electronic warfare effects.

Since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022, Russia has repeatedly interfered with GPS, and there are numerous other examples of Iran and China disrupting the capability in the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific.  

One option for reducing GPS exposure is for the U.S. to disaggregate its PNT capabilities by placing navigation satellites in other orbits besides MEO. This summer, the Space Force launched an experimental PNT spacecraft, dubbed Navigation Technologies Satellite-3, to geosynchronous orbit, where it will demonstrate whether a multi-orbit capability can boost resiliency.   

The Space Development Agency plans to host PNT signals on future data transport spacecraft in its low-Earth orbit constellation, using optical inter-satellite links. However, that work is on pause as the Space Force considers whether to build out the SDA transport constellation or instead leverage existing systems like SpaceX’s Starlink.  

Some commercial companies are launching PNT satellites to LEO for defense and commercial applications, and the report notes those systems could play a role in the military’s architecture once they mature. 

The department also has options on the ground. Terrestrial PNT systems like Loran, which uses low-frequency radio signals, could prove particularly useful for Golden Dome’s mission to protect major cities against uncrewed aircraft system intrusions. Many other countries leverage Loran, but while DOD has invested in transmission sites, the U.S. is not currently using the system for PNT.  

“Terrestrial PNT capabilities hold the potential of enhancing U.S. military resiliency, especially in tracking and defeating UAS threats to metropolitan areas,” the report states. “This will be crucial to Golden Dome’s role protecting metropolitan areas from unmanned aerial systems. These ‘Metro Golden Domes’ must be equally responsive and will require access to a resilient PNT architecture as much as or more than other layers within the Golden Dome.” 

Besides Loran, the military could take advantage of the Broadcast Positioning System, which operates via television broadcast infrastructure, the report notes.  

To better understand what shortfalls exist across the current PNT architecture, NSSA recommends the Pentagon conduct a “rapid gap analysis” focused specifically on improvements needed to meet Golden Dome requirements. The department should provide that analysis, as well as any funding requirements, to Congress to inform future resourcing decisions. 

Along with its recommendations to better fund PNT improvement projects and task an acquisition official with leading those efforts, NSSA proposes the Pentagon create an “integration management activity” to identify and test PNT systems and upgrades and to develop protections against PNT threats.  

“The adversary will also be developing counter-PNT systems, and those adversary systems must be thwarted,” the report states.  

Finally, NSSA calls on the department to model its Golden Dome acquisition strategies on those of organizations like the Space Development Agency and adopt commercial services whenever possible.  

“A mixture of bespoke national security PNT systems can enable rapid and resilient improvements in the timelines needed for Golden Dome deployments,” the report states.