The European Space Agency said receivers in Norway established their location using a new encrypted Galileo signal during Jammertest, the annual week of jamming and spoofing trials held on the Arctic island of Andoya. ESA described the two-hour test on the afternoon of Wednesday 16 September as the first real-world positioning using Galileo's upcoming Signal Authentication Service.
What Jammertest is
According to ESA, Norwegian authorities launch hundreds of jamming and spoofing attacks each September from the small village of Bleik, at 69 degrees north, so that participants can test their technologies against realistic threats and identify weaknesses.
ESA set out three types of intentional interference. Jamming floods a receiver with a powerful signal so it can no longer calculate a position. Spoofing uses false signals to trick a receiver into calculating an incorrect location. In a meaconing attack, real satellite signals are captured and rebroadcast to a nearby location, so the time or place shown by the receiver is wrong.
The agency said simple receivers are constantly fooled at the event, with map app markers disappearing or reappearing in the middle of a lake or out at sea, and smart watches even appearing to travel in time. It added that the same technology underpins critical infrastructure and services including aviation, financial systems, power grids and emergency assistance.
The Galileo authentication test
ESA said that for two hours on the afternoon of 16 September, five operational Galileo satellites broadcasting over Europe transmitted a new encrypted signal for testing, and that receivers on the ground at Jammertest successfully established their location using those signals.
The Signal Authentication Service, including the already available Open Service Navigation Message Authentication, will allow receivers to detect and reject a wide range of spoofing attacks, according to ESA.
The agency credited cooperation between the partners in the Galileo programme: ESA, the European Commission and its Joint Research Centre, and the European Union Agency for the Space Programme.
Celeste, EGNOS and NAVISP tests
ESA said both Celeste demonstration satellites flew over Andoya during the campaign, and that preliminary results indicate their signals were acquired by receivers on the ground, including under contested conditions. Engineers in ESA's navigation lab first captured signals from the two satellites in April, the agency said, and the new data will be analysed further at ESA ESTEC's navigation laboratory.
Two EGNOS monitoring station prototypes developed under the Horizon Europe programme also returned to Bleik in upgraded form after first field tests at last year's Jammertest. ESA said the goal is for the stations to become operational for the next generation of EGNOS receivers and available for safety of life applications.
Among NAVISP participants, ESA said NetInsight tested its Zyntai TimeNode Access timing distribution device, Dimetor collected information for its NAVSentry spoofing and jamming detection solution, and Testnor, the organiser of Jammertest, recorded data for its playback service. Other NAVISP ecosystem entities present included ANavS, the Finnish Geospatial Research Institute, Fugro Norway, Indra Space, Kongsberg Discovery, Leonardo, NTNU, Oscilloquartz, Septentrio, Space Norway, Syntony GNSS, Thales Alenia Space Italia, u-blox and Xona Space Systems UK.
What ESA says
"Jammertest has become a fundamental complement to our testing activities at ESTEC and in the field. It allows us to take a version of our lab on wheels and test innovations in a real-world environment, under conditions that are impossible to fully replicate in testing facilities," said Jorg Hahn, ESA's Galileo Head of Engineering.
ESA, a regular participant since 2023, said it brought its largest testing portfolio yet this year and that teams now have dozens of terabytes of data to postprocess, with results feeding into its programmes throughout the year.
Key facts and where they come from
- Galileo satellites broadcast a new encrypted signal for two hours on 16 September, enabling what ESA calls the first real-world positioning with the Signal Authentication Service.
For two hours on the afternoon of Wednesday 16 September, five operational Galileo satellites broadcasting over Europe transmitted a new encrypted signal for testing.
- SAS and OSNMA are intended to let receivers detect and reject spoofing.
SAS, including the already available Open Service Navigation Message Authentication (OSNMA), will allow receivers to detect and reject a wide range of spoofing attacks.
- Jammertest involves hundreds of attacks launched from Bleik, Norway.
Norwegian authorities launch hundreds of jamming and spoofing attacks, allowing participants to test their technologies against realistic threats
- Both Celeste demonstration satellites were tracked over Andoya, with signals acquired under contested conditions.
Celeste's signals were loud and clear, with preliminary results indicating that they were acquired by receivers on ground, also under contested conditions.
- Two EGNOS monitoring station prototypes developed under Horizon Europe were retested after last year's first field tests.
Developed under the Horizon Europe programme, the stations underwent their first field tests at last year's Jammertest.
- ESA has dozens of terabytes of data still to process after the campaign.
ESA teams have dozens of terabytes of data to postprocess.