Technology

GPS governance should expand beyond DoD, President’s advisory board says

The White House PNT advisory board says the U.S. needs the "locus of authority and accountability for PNT decision-making beyond DoD GPS program management."

Anastasia Obis

August 16, 2024 4:22 pm

3 min read

The White House National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) advisory board says GPS, which is primarily managed by the Defense Department, lacks a cohesive governance structure, suggesting that accountability and decision-making authority for PNT should extend beyond the DoD.

“While GPS is a Department of Defense program, the well-intentioned framework of an EXCOM to manage the interrelation of military and civil users is ineffective and nonresponsive to existing and emerging risks regarding not only GPS but the larger spectrum of U.S. PNT capabilities,” Retired Adm. Thaad Allen, who leads the President’s independent advisory board, wrote in a letter to Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks and Deputy Transportation Secretary Polly Trottenberg.

“GPS and associated PNT capabilities are an essential component of America’s critical infrastructure, supply chains and everyday life, particularly in the provision of timing services. It has become, in effect, a public utility, not unlike rural electrification or broadband access, except that the provider is DoD. Simply put, the board believes that the 20-year-old framework for GPS governance and the current policy statements establish neither the priority that the system deserves nor sufficiently clear accountability for its performance.”

GPS, originally developed by the DoD as a joint civil-military program, remains under the department’s control, but given its wide civilian and commercial use, the program is managed by an interagency executive committee known as the National Executive Committee for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT EXCOM). The committee, which includes DoD, DoT, the Departments of Homeland Security, Commerce, State and Energy, as well as NASA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, oversees the policies, operations and modernization of GPS.

Concerns about capabilities, governance

The board wants the White House to update Space Policy Directive 7 (SPD-7) to develop a more effective and organized approach for managing PNT services, including GPS. The policy, issued by former President Donald Trump, replaced an earlier policy from 2004.

In addition, there is a wide variety of emerging space and terrestrial-based capabilities that might offer greater PNT resilience, but the federal government doesn’t have an “adequate structure” to access and prioritize acquiring capability that can improve the country’s PNT capabilities.

“The Administration must revisit SPD-7 to establish a clear strategy, bolstered by a revised governance framework with clear roles and responsibilities extending to the creation of programs of record with resourcing plans to execute agency assigned responsibilities,” Allen said.

“To achieve this, a revised SPD-7 should include the locus of authority and accountability for PNT decision-making beyond DoD GPS program management and be capable of addressing the spectrum of challenges that have evolved, and continue to evolve, with the ubiquity of these services across technology and society for civil users.”

During the 30th PNT advisory board meeting that took place on April 24-25 in Colorado Springs, Colorado, the board floated the idea of creating a PNT czar for the country.

“We have lots of coordinating bodies within the government — we’re all familiar with them. One could argue that that’s exactly what we have right now in PNT — we have the EXCOM. What’s not clear is whether the EXCOM has the authority to do anything itself. The funding goes to the agencies that are participating, much of it to DoD. If there’s to be a single source of effective PNT leadership within the government, it’s going to have something close to that funding responsibility,” one of the board members said. “It’s a big ask, it’s an overhaul.”

The board also said the country’s PNT capabilities have fallen behind the European Union’s Galileo and China’s BeiDou, recommending making the GPS’ “long-planned” L5 signal operational for non-safety-of-life uses. The U.S. should also reexamine the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, which controls the export and import of defense-related items and services, the board suggested.

“User access to better antennas would reduce further GPS vulnerability to disruption, but the International Traffic in Arms Regulations continue to restrict access to such equipment. In the board’s view, there is no clear justification today for such restrictions,” Allen said.