The Rocky Road to a UK GNSS

In 2018, when the UK’s post-Brexit involvement in Galileo was still a point of contention between London and Brussels, UK ministers set aside £92m to study the feasibility of building a sovereign satellite-navigation system. Almost immediately, the UK Space-Based Positioning Navigation and Timing Program (SBPP) became something of a political football, or soccer ball if you prefer. Critics and supporters chimed in vehemently at any piece of news. Why an independent UK PNT system might be necessary remains a reasonable first question for some observers.

The Royal Institute of Navigation has long advocated a balanced and cooperative approach to global PNT, and specifically for not becoming overly reliant on GNSS. The Institute’s Director, John Pottle, told Inside GNSS, “For most applications, the open services are all that is needed, and there are already plenty of ranging sources available from the existing GNSSs.”

Of course, GPS, Galileo, GLONASS and BeiDou open signals remain freely accessible to all UK-based users, as does EGNOS, the EU’s regional augmentation system.

“My understanding,” Pottle continued, “ is that the UK’s current use of encrypted GPS for military purposes is not impacted by Brexit. So in many ways there is not a ‘problem to solve’ in the immediate future in relation to provision of services. The question of whether the UK needs control over its own space-based positioning, navigation or timing assets is very much a strategic and political one that I am happy to leave to the politicians to decide!”

Read more in Inside GNSS article. https://insidegnss.com/the-rocky-road-to-a-uk-gnss/