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--- transportation:satellites [2026/04/23 22:57] – [Anti-Satellite Weapons] timb
+++ transportation:satellites [2026/06/10 23:47] (current) – [Jamming] timb
@@ Line 747: / Line 747: @@
 https://www.theregister.com/2025/11/14/project_kuiper_amazon_leo/
+== Amazon Leo's satellite homework is late, but FCC won't flunk it just yet ==
+Orbital broadband biz will miss its July 30 deadline to have 1,616 spacecraft in place
+Dan Robinson - Mon 08 Jun 2026 15:21 UTC
+Amazon is set to miss its deadline to deploy half of its Leo satellite constellation by July 30, as required by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The agency has, however, granted it a waiver of sorts – at the cost of priority status in spectrum licensing.
+The Bezos-founded behemoth got the go-ahead from the FCC for what was then known as Project Kuiper back in 2020. This was on the proviso that it had 50 percent of its planned constellation of 3,236 broadband satellites in orbit by July 30, 2026.
+Amazon rebranded its satellite broadband biz from Project Kuiper to Amazon Leo in November last year.
+However, the company filed an application on January 30 this year seeking an extension of the deployment deadline by 24 months, or alternatively a complete waiver of this milestone requirement.
+At the time of filing the application, Amazon Leo reported that it had launched just 180 satellites and estimated that it will have deployed approximately 700 by the July 30 deadline.
+On June 5, the FCC granted Amazon a limited waiver of its 50 percent deployment requirement. However, the company is still expected to meet its final deployment deadline of July 30, 2029, for the entire constellation.
+https://www.theregister.com/networks/2026/06/08/amazon-leos-satellite-homework-is-late-but-fcc-wont-flunk-it-just-yet/5252287
+==  FCC lifts looming deadline for Amazon Leo satellite broadband constellation ==
+The waiver “serves the public interest by promoting a second large satellite broadband constellation.”
+Stephen Clark – Jun 8, 2026 5:59 PM
+The Federal Communications Commission has waived a requirement for Amazon to launch half of its satellite broadband constellation by the end of July, a key regulatory reprieve that buys the tech giant time to get more of its spacecraft into orbit.
+Amazon won regulatory approval for the Amazon Leo network in July 2020. The FCC’s authorization came with two deadlines. First, Amazon had to launch half of its 3,232 satellites by July 30, 2026, in order to maintain authorization to launch the rest of the network. The regulator gave Amazon a deadline of July 30, 2029, to have all of its first-generation satellites in orbit.
+It has been apparent for some time that Amazon would not meet the FCC’s requirement to launch half of its satellites—1,616 spacecraft—by the end of next month. Amazon filed an application in January requesting the FCC extend the deadline to July 2028 or waive it altogether. The commission decided on the latter option, removing any time limit for the 50 percent deployment milestone, but keeping the July 2029 deadline in place for the entire constellation.
+https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/06/fcc-lifts-looming-deadline-for-amazon-leo-satellite-broadband-constellation/
@@ Line 3823: / Line 3854: @@
 https://aviationweek.com/business-aviation/safety-ops-regulation/gps-needs-toughen-or-get-trampled-down
@@ Line 4053: / Line 4080: @@
 https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/03/07/0521211/military-gps-jamming-is-interfering-with-the-navigation-systems-of-commercial-ships
+== Tests suggest Russian satellites can jam GPS on a continental scale ==
+Mystery of GPS interference across Europe raises questions about Russian motives.
+Jeremy Hsu – Jun 8, 2026 2:56 PM
+Russian satellites have been identified as the cause of mysterious, seconds-long bursts of GPS interference across Europe—a rare example of human-made GPS interference coming from space. But uncertainty still hangs over whether such interference is intentional and if it could be more powerfully weaponized as GPS jamming with continental reach in the future.
+The discovery came from an investigation detailed in a June 2 preprint paper by Todd Humphreys and his student Zach Clements at The University of Texas at Austin, along with Argyris Krizise at Stanford University in California. By sifting through public data from ground-based stations with global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receivers, they identified a pattern of high-powered interference lasting less than 10 seconds each time but simultaneously detectable by ground stations across Europe from Norway to Spain to Poland, and even reaching as far west as Greenland and Canada.
+By analyzing the ground station data from January 2019 to April 2026, the researchers found 75 days with at least one widespread GNSS interference event overlapping with the GPS L1 frequency band centered on 1575.42 megahertz. That represents the main band used for signal transmission by the US-made GPS satellite constellation and GNSS constellations from other countries.
+Such interference patterns happened mostly on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays during business hours in Europe, Humphreys told the YouTube channel Veritasium. Because such “continental-scale” interference was simultaneously affecting GPS receivers across Europe and beyond, Humphreys and his colleagues calculated that the source had to be at least 1,200 kilometers above the Earth.
+By examining which satellites were above the horizon over the affected region during each interference event, the researchers narrowed their search to a handful of suspect satellites. But they couldn’t go further because they only had data processed by the GNSS receivers of the ground stations—they needed to capture the raw radio signal data from the interference source.
+https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/06/tests-suggest-russian-satellites-can-jam-gps-on-a-continental-scale/
+== Russian Satellites Are Jamming GPS Signals, Study Says ==
+The interference happened mostly during business hours, suggesting scheduled operations.
+Passant Rabie - June 10, 2026, 10:20 am ET
+While sifting through data collected by GPS monitoring stations, a team of researchers noticed a mysterious pattern. Over the past seven years, the team documented 75 days on which there was a sudden drop in signal strength that occurred simultaneously across Europe. A thorough investigation traced the disruptions to a small constellation of Russian satellites, which may be jamming GPS signals on purpose.
+A recent investigation led by Todd Humphreys from the University of Texas, Austin, found that the Russian satellite Kosmos 2546 may have been used to jam GPS signals on a continental scale as part of scheduled operations. While the purpose of the signal interference is not yet clear, the findings could have bigger implications for electronic warfare in global conflicts. The findings have not yet undergone peer review, but the researchers have submitted the paper for review to NAVIGATION, the journal of the Institute of Navigation.
+https://gizmodo.com/russian-satellites-are-jamming-gps-signals-from-space-study-says-2000769972
@@ Line 4131: / Line 4186: @@
+==== Numbers Station ====
+== The U.S. Military Quietly Turned GPS Into a Global ‘Numbers Station,’ Evidence Suggests ==
+Becky Ferreira - Jun 5, 2026 at 11:28 AM
+The U.S. military has likely been quietly broadcasting codes for its global encryption network using public GPS for nearly 20 years, turning each satellite into a hidden “numbers station,” according to Steven Murdoch, an information security expert, who detailed his findings in a new article in Inside GNSS.
+That means every device that uses GPS has been receiving hidden government information for years, and nobody outside the military knew it until now.
+Murdoch, a professor of security engineering and head of the Information Security Research Group at University College London, presented evidence that a 176-bit GPS sequence labelled “Subframe 4, Page 17” is encrypted material from the Pentagon’s Over-the-Air Distribution (OTAD) network, which delivers cryptographic keys to military personnel around the world.
+“I think the evidence that it's for key transmission—for use in distributing the keys for accessing the military GPS signals—is pretty strong now,” Murdoch said in a call with 404 Media. He noted that the military has “specialized receivers that have the ability to have keys loaded into them” and “presumably have the ability to decrypt these special messages.”
+In his new article, Murdoch described how this “forgotten 176-bit slot in the world’s most successful navigation signal turned out to be its quietest and most consequential broadcast.”
+Murdoch first spotted the sequence more than a decade ago while he was a graduate student tasked with writing a decoder for raw GPS data while working on a project funded by the European Space Agency.
+“I noticed that there was this random-looking data present in the subframe,” he recalled. “I looked at the specification, and thought that was a little bit unusual. I recorded a bunch of it to look for any obvious patterns, but that wasn't the main role of the project, so we moved on.”
+From the beginning, he suspected that the subframe field contained encrypted transmissions because the data was so random. “Random data is actually very unusual to get in nature,” Murdoch said. “If you see it, either it's been carefully designed to be random—but then, why is someone sending out random data?—or it's encrypted data. I thought encrypted data is by far the most likely explanation.”
+https://www.404media.co/the-u-s-military-quietly-turned-gps-into-a-global-numbers-station-evidence-suggests/
+== The US Military Quietly Turned GPS Into a Global 'Numbers Station,' Evidence Suggests ==
+Posted by BeauHD on Friday June 05, 2026 04:00PM
+A security researcher says evidence suggests the U.S. military has been using an obscure GPS message field for nearly 20 years to broadcast encrypted key-distribution data, effectively turning GPS satellites into a global "numbers station." The hidden-looking 176-bit messages appear tied to the Pentagon's Over-the-Air Distribution system for remotely updating cryptographic keys, meaning ordinary GPS receivers may have been receiving the traffic all along without anyone outside the military noticing. The findings have been detailed by Steven Murdoch, an information security expert, in a new article in Inside GNSS. 404 Media reports:
+<blockquote>
+[...] From the beginning, he suspected that the subframe field contained encrypted transmissions because the data was so random. "Random data is actually very unusual to get in nature," Murdoch said. "If you see it, either it's been carefully designed to be random -- but then, why is someone sending out random data? -- or it's encrypted data. I thought encrypted data is by far the most likely explanation." He returned to the subframe on and off over the years, and solicited guesses about its content on Stack Exchange in 2023. Ahmed Kamruddin, a master's student at UCL, developed the project further in 2025. Then, this year, Murdoch put the last pieces of the puzzle together over several weeks by analyzing open archive Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) recordings collected since 2007 and kept by GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences.
+</blockquote>
+https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/06/05/211249/the-us-military-quietly-turned-gps-into-a-global-numbers-station-evidence-suggests
@@ Line 4829: / Line 4922: @@
 https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/21/hubble_astronaut_budget_fears/
+===== Extension of Lifespan =====
+== Hubble Could Get a New Lease on Life—If NASA Can Afford It ==
+The space agency is considering keeping Hubble around for longer if it can reduce the telescope's operating costs.
+Passant Rabie - June 8, 2026, 2:45 pm ET
+NASA’s Hubble space telescope is running out of time. The aging observatory is slowly being dragged down toward Earth and is estimated to reenter through the atmosphere by 2033. NASA could save it, but only if Hubble becomes more affordable.
+NASA is currently preparing to extend the lifespan of another Earth-orbiting telescope—the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory. The agency is launching a rescue mission later this month, aiming to raise Swift’s altitude and shift it into a more stable orbit.
+The space agency has been considering a similar reboost mission for the Hubble telescope if it can find a way to lower its operating costs. “It was built in a different era, and it’s more costly to maintain and to get the best science out of it,” Shawn Domagal-Goldman, director of NASA’s astrophysics division, said during a recent meeting of the Astronomy and Astrophysics Advisory Committee, SpaceNews reported.
+https://gizmodo.com/hubble-could-get-a-new-lease-on-life-if-nasa-can-afford-it-2000768823
@@ Line 6803: / Line 6914: @@
+===== Leak 2026 =====
+== Uh-oh, the International Space Station is leaking again ==
+“This further confirms the wisdom of the current policy of retiring the ISS in 2030.”
+Eric Berger – May 21, 2026 9:07 AM
+NASA confirmed Thursday that the Russian segment of the International Space Station has begun leaking atmosphere into space again. It’s an old problem that NASA recently hoped was resolved.
+For more than half a decade, engineers from Roscosmos and NASA have been tracking the leak rate from a small Russian module attached to the space station that leads to a docking port. The source of these leaks, microscopic structural cracks, have been difficult to find and address.
+In January, NASA said that after multiple inspections and sealant applications, the pressure inside this segment, known as the PrK module, had reached a “stable configuration.” The PrK module is essentially a transfer tunnel attached to the Zvezda Service Module on the Russian segment of the space station.
+This announcement by NASA was greeted by a sigh of relief in the space community, as atmospheric leaks on a pressure vessel like the International Space Station are never a good thing.
+https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/05/uh-oh-the-international-space-station-is-leaking-again/
+== That Dreaded Air Leak on the ISS’s Russian Segment Is Back ==
+You thought it was over!
+Passant Rabie - May 22, 2026, 3:50 pm ET
+Like a recurring nightmare, a troubling leak from the Russian segment of the International Space Station has returned despite several attempts to patch it up.
+NASA and Roscosmos have spent years trying to find and repair the source of the air leak on the orbiting lab. Last year, a new pressure signal in a segment of the Zvezda module suggested that the leak was finally repaired. Alas, the space station appears to be leaking again.
+Earlier this month, the Russian space agency (Roscosmos) noted a slow pressure drop in the transfer tunnel that connects to the Zvezda Service Module, indicating that the ISS is still leaking air from microscopic cracks, Ars Technica reported. Data analysis indicated that air is leaking from the Russian module at a rate of about one pound per day, NASA spokesperson Josh Finch told Ars on Thursday.
+https://gizmodo.com/that-dreaded-air-leak-on-the-isss-russian-segment-is-back-2000762536
+== ISS astronauts had to shelter in place in the SpaceX Dragon capsule because of an air leak ==
+Russian cosmonauts attempted a repair, but that has since been put on hold.
+Lawrence Bonk - June 5, 2026 11:41 am EST
+NASA directed astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) to shelter in place and prepare for a potential evacuation, according to a report by the BBC. This comes after the Russian Space Agency Roscosmos discovered an air leak in the transfer tunnel while docking a cargo ship.
+Five of the seven astronauts currently aboard the ISS sheltered in place inside the docked SpaceX Dragon vessel. The ship was designated as a "safe haven" as two Russian cosmonauts attempted a repair. The air leaks resulted from cracks in the transfer tunnel.
+Read More: https://www.engadget.com/2188304/iss-astronauts-had-to-shelter-in-place-due-to-air-leak/
+== ISS Astronauts Told to Shelter in Place as Air Leak Saga Continues ==
+A worsening leak on the Russian side of the space station forced five astronauts on NASA's side to shelter in place Friday.
+Ellyn Lapointe - June 5, 2026, 11:02 am ET
+Update: 11:20 a.m. ET Friday, June 5: NASA lifted the shelter in place order for its personnel aboard the International Space Station just before 11 a.m. ET on Friday.
+NASA has lifted a shelter in place order for its astronauts aboard the International Space Station as the Russian crew attempts to repair a worsening leak on its side of the station, the agency said Friday.
+The four Crew 12 astronauts (NASA’s Jessica Meir, Jack Hathaway, the European Space Agency’s Sophie Adenot, and Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev) as well as NASA astronaut Chris Williams received orders from mission control at 9:04 a.m. ET to don their spacesuits and enter their Crew Dragon spacecraft, a NASA official told Reuters.
+This would have allowed them to depart the space station quickly in the event that the leak warranted an emergency evacuation, but just before 11 a.m. ET, NASA Press Secretary Bethany Stevens said the agency had instructed the crew inside the Dragon spacecraft to end safe haven procedures and return to planned operations. Roscosmos has paused structural repair efforts to gather more measurements and data on the leak.
+https://gizmodo.com/iss-astronauts-told-to-shelter-in-place-prepare-for-evacuation-due-to-air-leaks-2000768091
+== Astronauts told to return to International Space Station after sheltering over air leak repairs ==
+June 2026
+Summary
+- Astronauts who had been sheltering on a spacecraft while new air leaks were being repaired on the International Space Station have been told to resume normal duties, Nasa says
+- It adds that repairs to the Zvezda service module being carried out by two Russian cosmonauts have been paused "as more measurements and data is assessed"
+- The leak is not new - it has been one of the most persistent and troubling problems in the station's history, and despite years of attempts, engineers have never fully solved it, writes our science correspondent
+- Earlier Nasa said it had instructed five crew members to shelter inside the docked SpaceX Crew Dragon "Freedom" spacecraft as a precautionary measure - here's who's on board
+https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c4g44ew3g1kt
+== The saga of the International Space Station air leak took a worrying turn Friday ==
+“We look forward to working with Roscosmos on a collaborative approach to address the leaks.”
+Stephen Clark – Jun 5, 2026 12:03 PM
+Five of the seven crew members on the International Space Station briefly sought refuge inside a SpaceX return capsule Friday morning as two Russian cosmonauts worked on an air leak on the other end of the complex.
+NASA ordered US astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, French astronaut Sophie Adenot, and Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev into SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Freedom spacecraft around 9 am EST (14:00 UTC) on Friday. The foursome launched aboard the SpaceX crew capsule on the Crew-12 mission in February, and the ship serves as their lifeboat until the crew’s scheduled return to Earth in September.
+NASA astronaut Chris Williams, who flew to the station in a Russian Soyuz ferry ship, joined the Crew-12 astronauts inside the Dragon spacecraft.
+“All USOS (US Orbital Segment) crew members need to execute … Emergency Procedure 3.4: Crew Dragon, establish Safe Haven,” NASA mission control radioed to the station crew around 9 am. “If we need (you) to suit up, we will do that once we’re inside the Dragon.”
+A short time later, a NASA spokesperson posted a statement on X attributing the shelter order to a repair on persistent air leaks on the Russian segment of the space station. For more than half a decade, engineers from Roscosmos and NASA have tracked the leak rate from a transfer tunnel on the back end of Russia’s Zvezda Service Module. The tunnel, known by the Russian acronym PrK, leads to a docking port for Progress resupply and refueling freighters.
+Engineers believe the leaks are caused by microscopic cracks in the module’s structure. Russian cosmonauts have repeatedly inspected and attempted to seal the cracks, but a permanent fix has eluded them. After a few months of pressure stability inside the PrK earlier this year, Roscosmos confirmed in May that the air leaks had returned.
+https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/06/work-on-russias-leaky-space-station-module-causes-astronauts-to-take-shelter/
+== NASA’s Crew Safety Alert Exposed a Bigger ISS Leak Problem ==
+A risky plan to repair the air leak was put on hold as it might have compromised the structure of the Russian module.
+Passant Rabie - June 9, 2026, 3:15 pm ET
+The dreaded air leak on the International Space Station (ISS) has gotten so bad that Russian cosmonauts were preparing to use a saw to access a suspected leak area in the Zvezda module’s transfer tunnel.
+NASA released an update on the long-running leak from the Russian segment of the space station, revealing details of the plan that prompted five crew members to shelter in place on Friday, June 5. According to NASA, Roscosmos had come up with a plan that involved cutting a bracket to better access an area that may have been contributing to the leak.
+This new strategy “could have resulted in elevated risk to the structure in the area,” NASA wrote. The Russian space agency put its plan on hold for now to gather more data and further inspect the suspected areas.
+https://gizmodo.com/nasas-crew-safety-alert-exposed-a-bigger-iss-leak-problem-2000769504
@@ Line 8986: / Line 9209: @@
 https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/09/in-a-major-policy-shift-germany-considers-offensive-weapons-in-space/
+== Four Russian satellites are now within striking distance of an ICEYE radarsat ==
+“This capability is not common for satellites conducting typical missions.”
+Stephen Clark – May 22, 2026 3:50 PM
+At least four Russian military satellites changed their orbits to match that of a Finnish-American radar surveillance satellite in the last week, raising questions about Russia’s intentions amid an ever-expanding standoff high above Earth.
+The maneuvers were identified through open source orbital tracking data. Greg Gillinger, a retired Air Force space intelligence officer, revealed the orbit changes Friday in a special edition of his Integrity Flash newsletter, published by Integrity ISR, a private business that provides “combat-proven operational support and elite training that enhances mission success across ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance), cyber, space, and targeting domains.”
+The Russian satellites in question, designated Kosmos 2610 through 2613, launched together on April 16 on a Soyuz-2.1b rocket from Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia. Over the last week or so, the four satellites adjusted their inclinations—the angles of their orbits to the equator—by less than a degree.
+That may sound insignificant, but such “plane change” maneuvers use up a lot of fuel. The delta-v, or velocity change, required for a plane change maneuver of this magnitude is equivalent to the impulse needed to raise altitude by more than 100 miles.
+The upshot is that these four Russian satellites are now positioned to routinely pass near a commercial radar surveillance satellite operated by the Finnish-American company ICEYE. This imaging platform, named ICEYE-X36, is part of a fleet of satellites providing all-weather overhead radar images to the US military and European governments. ICEYE also provides imagery to Ukraine’s military in its fight against Russia. ICEYE’s co-founder and CEO, Rafal Modrzewski, met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last year.
+https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/05/a-satellite-company-supporting-ukraine-appears-to-be-in-russias-crosshairs/