Great warships

Chapter 1238 It’s all because of the GPS
Drones do not require external control and can fly autonomously, but they also have other limitations. For example, if the fuel is used up, it will fall down. After capturing the drone, the first step is to cut off its power and fuel.

Once all this is done, the next step is to find a tow truck and tow it into the hangar to avoid being discovered by the reconnaissance satellites flying overhead.

When the RQ-170 drone entered the hangar, everyone breathed a sigh of relief; they finally got it!
It took half an hour for someone to realize something was wrong.

"Our RQ170 drone that took off from the Imperial Graveyard suddenly lost contact!"

"what happened?"

"I don't know. It was still working when it flew over the Isfahan base. It sent us data once, but then it disappeared."

"Did it get shot down? Impossible, that's our most advanced stealth drone!"

"Now, the advantages of stealth aircraft are not as great as before. Various anti-stealth technologies will make our aircraft detected or even shot down."

Everyone was talking about it. Tenet frowned and said, "The first thing we need to do now is to find where the plane is. If it really landed on the land of the Parthian Empire, we must find a way to destroy it."

We must not let it fall into the hands of the Parthians, as it contains advanced American technology!
"How to destroy it?"

"Try every possible way to destroy it!" Bennett said, "If the Parthians obtained the drone, it means that the Orientals also got the technology on it! We can't tolerate this situation!"

"Boss, I think we should first think about how we should explain if they really get hold of it. As for destroying it, there is no need. If the plane was shot down, it must have crashed, and only the wreckage would be left."

"Yes, let's just say the plane lost control and we got in on our own."

"These are not important. We need to determine where the plane is first."

They didn't have to wait long. A few days later, the Parthian Empire took the initiative to announce the news.

"Not long ago, near Isfahan, our brave fighters captured a U.S. military unmanned reconnaissance aircraft. We once again strongly protest this violation of our airspace!"

When Bennett saw the news, he didn't take it seriously.

"It seems that they did shoot it down. They may have advanced anti-stealth radar. Damn it, the spread of this technology is not good for us. We must solve this hidden danger... Hey, why is that plane intact?"

Bennett looked towards the TV, where a video of the captured unmanned reconnaissance aircraft appeared. From every angle, it was a complete drone, with no signs of having been hit.

"Yeah, how did they do that?"

"Could this be a model they made?" At this moment, everyone was filled with disbelief.

A complete drone, what does this mean? Did the aircraft land on its own initiative?
"It's not a model, it should be our real aircraft. Look at its landing gear, the unique metal texture, it's not fake."

"Could it be that our plane's program malfunctioned and it landed on its own?"

At this moment, the host's words were heard from the TV again.

"In order to capture this drone, we used the latest satellite navigation jammer, which can not only interfere with the signal of GPS satellites, but also inject false data. After the drone flew near our base, it thought it had returned to the take-off point, so it landed autonomously according to the built-in program."

Interfering with GPS signals!

Everyone understands.

"Damn it, they don't have the power to interfere with our GPS satellites!"

"This is simply a provocation to us! We should attack them!"

Everyone was a little angry.

However, they were only angry. They had no temper towards their enemy, the Parthian Empire. After all, they had used all means, but the Parthian Empire had never given in.

"Issue an announcement to the public that one of our drones has mistakenly entered the airspace of the Parthian Empire due to a program failure. We hope that they will return the drone to us. It is our American property." Bennett said weakly.

He knew that this type of drone could no longer be used for cross-border reconnaissance. The Global Hawk didn't work before, and the RQ-170 doesn't work now. What other options do they have?
From now on, we can only use reconnaissance satellites!

"The Parthian Empire is provoking us. They want to tell us that the GPS, which our army relies on the most, can be interfered with by them at any time!" Another person cursed: "Damn it, we must solve this hidden danger! What do you think we should do?"

"I think we should install the BeiDou navigation system on all our equipment."

"What did you say? That's the stupidest plan I've ever heard!"

"That's for the best. After all, they can't possibly interfere with the satnav they use!"

East, Yellow Tower.

"The only thing left there is the shell of the RQ-170. The electronic equipment inside has been dismantled and sent back. Our relevant personnel are studying it." Wu Shengli looked at Qin Tao: "Taozi, you have made a great contribution."

"Dad, I didn't do anything. It was all done by the technicians." Qin Tao said, "But the Americans are going to have a hard time this time. Especially their satellite navigation system. I wonder if they need to update it completely."

This time, not only do they want to get the American reconnaissance plane, but they also want to release false intelligence to the outside world.

We can't say that we have cracked their data link. When they change to a new password, we will have to crack it again. Moreover, they are also developing a more advanced Link22 data link, which will be more difficult to crack. It is best to use this first.

If we don't tell them the reason, they will definitely guess, and maybe think of a problem with the data link. So we might as well just tell them that we exploited a loophole in the satellite navigation!

The Americans were the first to make satellite navigation practical, and they used it extensively on the battlefield. Now they can't live without it. This is a good opportunity for the Americans to realize how fragile this thing they rely so heavily on is!

In fact, there were jammers for GPS in the past, but they could only interfere with signals. Now, we can go a step further and directly use other signals instead, so that the terminal receives a false signal and gets a wrong address.

Once this technology develops, the U.S. military will face terrible problems in the future: fighter jets will lose their accuracy in dropping bombs, and they may even not know how to fly!
Maybe, according to the instructions of the GPS, they will fly over the heads of their own people and drop bombs!

After more than 1989 years of exploration, the Americans launched the first official GPS working satellite on February 2, 4. In June 93, the 6th satellite was launched, officially realizing the global network.

After that, the whole world began to rely on this advanced satellite navigation system. No one thought about what the world would be like after this system failed. Apart from anything else, a timing service alone would affect the power grid, financial transactions, etc. In 2016, the United States retired a GPS satellite, resulting in an error of 13 microseconds in the entire satellite system. Such a trivial error alone caused chaos around the world for 12 hours.

Now that everyone knows that GPS is unreliable, what will they do next?
"This way, we will have more Beidou users," Qin Tao said. "After all, there are no jammers targeting our Beidou navigation system yet, and one more navigation system means more insurance."

There are many benefits to directly announcing the capture of the American drone to the public. For example, it will make the Americans turn their attention to satellite navigation systems. The Americans will no longer dare to send drones to the Parthian Empire for reconnaissance. Moreover, it will also expand the user base of the Beidou navigation system.

Beidou navigation, like GPS civilian signals, is public. It seems that even if the user group expands, there will be no more benefits. In fact, this is only a one-sided view.

The Beidou navigation system is free, but this module costs money! If you want to use this navigation system, you have to have a built-in receiving module, and the manufacturer of this module will also make more money.

Who is the manufacturer? Of course it is Mingzhou Group. In order to promote Beidou navigation, Qin Tao helped and contracted the production of these receivers.

Of course, making money is a small matter. It is more of a strategic consideration. Once these users choose Beidou, they will definitely hope that the Beidou system will be more stable and will more firmly support their Beidou navigation. It would be even better if Beidou navigation can squeeze out GPS and become the world's largest navigation system.

After all, these are the only two navigation systems in the world now.

The Russian system has been in a paralyzed state and is not easy to use. As for the European Galileo system, it is still a long way to go to establish a network. Since GPS is unreliable, we can only use Beidou!

"The Americans are updating their GPS satellites. Now that this situation has occurred, do they have to discard the second-generation satellites and continue to develop advanced satellites?" said Wu Shengli.

Satellites have a lifespan, and the Russians' navigation satellites only have a lifespan of half a year, so their network has never been established. After all, they have to keep launching satellites and keep burning money.

In comparison, the lifespan of the US GPS is much longer. The lifespan of the first generation of satellites is ten years. Therefore, after the successful networking in 93, a new batch of satellites have been replaced in the past few years. With the development of technology, they have also been replaced with second-generation navigation satellites. The lifespan of these navigation satellites has been increased to 12 years, but overall, there have not been many changes.

"Yes, we must discard the second-generation navigation satellites and develop the third-generation satellites. Moreover, the third-generation satellites must solve the current interference problem." Qin Tao said: "However, this will be a huge expense. The Americans will be dragged down by the Soviet Union in the same way as they dragged down the Soviet Union in the past."

Before Qin Tao was reborn, the Americans had already developed the third-generation GPS satellite. This type of satellite has many features, for example, the accuracy has been increased three times and the anti-interference ability has been increased eight times. These are improvements based on the original ones and there is nothing much to say. Among them, the revolutionary progress is that this satellite adopts the new L1C civilian signal, which allows it to interoperate with other satellite systems.

What does it mean?
If you want to get your location information, you need three navigation satellites above your head. If you add the altitude, you need four. In the past, this required the same model, for example, all GPS, or all Beidou, or all Galileo. But this new GPS navigation satellite can not only use its own, but also others.

For example, one GPS plus three Beidou satellites can solve the navigation problem, or one GPS, two Beidou satellites and one Galileo can be used in combination. It is impossible that all signals will be interfered with, right?
This solves the problem to the greatest extent possible.

It sounds very advanced, but this kind of advanced navigation satellite is naturally very expensive. In later generations, the Americans only launched this project in 2016 and called in all their bigwigs, including Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. Each company received $600 million in funding to start bidding.

After the supplier was selected, it cost $14 billion to launch just the first two satellites. The entire project cost over tens of billions of dollars.

Back then, the second-generation navigation satellites were only updated when they reached the end of their lifespan. But now, the second-generation navigation satellites have just been launched and they have to be scrapped. This is a huge expense!

Now, the ball is in the hands of the Americans, and it depends on how they respond!
Wu Shengli shook his head: "No, I think they have another way, such as deciphering our Beidou navigation system and then doing the same."

Qin Tao suddenly realized: "Yes! We need to investigate the R&D personnel to see if anyone in the Beidou team has been turned, or has left the team to go to the United States, especially a woman..."

United States, Pentagon.

"The attack on our navigation satellites is too much!"

"Yes, navigation satellites are too important. They are related to the combat and even safety of our navy, army and air force. Therefore, we must find a way to solve this problem!"

Although the Americans have long been aware of this problem and have even rehearsed operations without the support of satellite navigation systems, those were just exercises after all. It would be very inconvenient if the satellite navigation system could not be used in normal operations.

"Very. Back then, we didn't have navigation satellites, but we still fought. Now, can we not do without navigation satellites?"

After hearing this complaint, countless people present smiled bitterly.

That’s right, back then, there was no need for navigation satellites, so when we flew over to bomb, we could only rely on inertial navigation and terrain matching. Although we could fly to the destination, the accuracy was only at the level of 100 meters! After flying over, the pilot still needed to determine the target and launch the attack. What about now? The JDAM bomb modified with a simple GPS kit can achieve meter-level accuracy.

Can this be compared?

With navigation satellites, it is much more convenient.

Besides, were there so many drones in the past? In the drone era, if you want to know your exact location coordinates, you have to rely on satellite navigation! No matter how accurate the inertial navigation system is, the cumulative error will continue to increase as the flight progresses. For example, a Global Hawk can fly in the sky for thirty or forty hours. If it only uses inertial missiles, it will definitely not be able to find the airport when it returns!
"We have to develop a new generation of navigation satellites," Meier Birnbaum said. "Only a new generation of satellite navigation systems can help us avoid these problems. This is urgent."

Back then, in order to develop the first generation of navigation satellites, the project departments of the Navy and the Air Force combined to form a special Satellite Navigation and Positioning Joint Program Office, referred to as JPO, where Mel Birnbaum worked. Now, with gray hair, he is about to retire, but as the head of JPO, his words still carry a lot of weight.

"A new generation of satellites? We have just developed the second generation of navigation satellites. Now, just because of this accident, we have to develop the third generation? Bernbaum, do you know how much this will cost?" You Weite said. As the head of the Audit Bureau, he had to pay. Now, where could he get so much money?

Research and development requires money, and updating satellites requires money. Where can we find such huge amounts of money?
You Weite would never agree to that.

"What do you think if we develop a jammer specifically to interfere with the Beidou navigation satellite of the Orientals? Would this be a cost-saving solution?"

New navigation satellites are expensive, but jammers are much simpler.

“We can interfere, but can we get into the BeiDou system? Can we imitate false signals to deceive user terminals?” Meier-Birnbaum’s face was serious: “How much will it cost to achieve this level? Will it be cheaper than developing a new generation of navigation satellites? Moreover, in this way, we will all go back to the past. What’s the point?”

Although it is not known how the Parthian Empire did it, the technology required to do so is very advanced and requires a large amount of money to research. What they lack most is funding. Moreover, even if they succeed in researching it, it will only be a lose-lose situation. If they want to gain an advantage, they still have to research a new generation of navigation satellites!

“So, we still have to develop a new generation of navigation satellites. This is necessary for our future and for our navy, army and air force!” Mel Birnbaum was the only one speaking in the audience: “We are already behind the Orientals in many aspects. In the field of satellite navigation, we must not continue to lag behind!”

"Everyone, we may have another way." At this time, someone spoke up: "What do you think if we can find the technicians who develop Beidou navigation satellites and persuade them to defect?"

"How can this be?"

"Those idiots in the CIA, could they do that?"

Turano, who was called an idiot, stood up and said, "Of course we can do it, everyone. We have found a candidate!"

"where is it?"

"She is in the United States!" Turano said, "She participated in the research and development of the Beidou navigation system, and then applied to Stanford University. She is currently studying here. With our encouragement, she will soon join us!"

(End of this chapter)