massive solar storm. This has focused military minds on alternatives.
A soldier checks a map during NATO’s Trident Juncture exercise in October 2018. Participants accused the Russian government of GPS jamming during the exercise. Leon NealGetty Images
The Navy’s Automated Celestial Navigation System would replace manual shipboard measurements with something more accurate, while Special Operations Command experts are developing a handheld device for commandos. Both pieces of tech are aiming for GPS-level precision.
“The best accuracy for celestial navigation with certainty is within a couple of meters,” says Benjamin Lane of the Advanced Position, Navigation & Timing Instrumentation unit at Draper Laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “In practice, we are within a factor of a few of that.”