Russia · California · YouTube · Ars Technica
Tests suggest Russian satellites can jam GPS on a continental scale
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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.
Key facts
- 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
- In April 2026, the leader of US Space Command warned that Russia had operationalized anti-satellite weapons capable of targeting US government satellites
- 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
- In September 2025, the researchers sought help from the broader community at the Institute of Navigation conference in Baltimore, Maryland, according to Veritasium
Summary
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 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. Such interference patterns happened mostly on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays during business hours in Europe, Humphreys told the YouTube channel Veritasium. 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.