In Europe, satellite navigation, GPS, Galileo, and other Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), is no longer just an engineering issue. It has become an operational and safety risk for aviation, maritime traffic, and critical infrastructure that relies on precise timing.
Since the war in Ukraine began, GNSS jamming and spoofing have surged across the Baltic, the Black Sea, and parts of the Mediterranean. Flights have rerouted, shipping tracks have been disrupted, and drones have lost reliable navigation, turning a technical nuisance into a persistent operational threat.
In October 2025, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) issued a formal condemnation of GNSS interference and spoofing practices attributed to Russia, describing them as a violation of the Chicago Convention and a direct threat to aviation safety. The signal is clear: GNSS can no longer be treated as a guaranteed utility, it is a layer to protect, monitor, and backstop.
Europe’s answer is taking shape as a “plan B”: a complementary positioning, navigation, and timing architecture, often framed as complementary PNT (C-PNT), that combines authenticated signals, low Earth orbit (LEO) augmentation, terrestrial alternatives, and tougher operating procedures.
Three workstreams for 2025–2028
Authenticate GNSS signals
The first step is to raise the bar for spoofing. In July 2025, Galileo activated Open Service Navigation Message Authentication (OSNMA). For compatible receivers, OSNMA helps verify that navigation messages are genuinely from Galileo satellites and have not been manipulated. It does not solve jamming, no signal is still no signal, but it makes credible spoofing significantly harder.
The European Union is also moving toward authenticated GNSS for sensitive uses, including commercial truck tachographs and certain government applications. This is an early shift toward treating GNSS as an integrity-managed service, not just an “always-on” free signal.
Build real backup layers
The second workstream is diversification: ensuring that a single attack method cannot collapse every PNT layer at once.
Space-based augmentation: the European Space Agency (ESA) is preparing LEO-based PNT augmentation concepts. With satellites closer to Earth, signals can be stronger and geometrically distinct from traditional medium Earth orbit GNSS. The goal is not to replace Galileo, but to reinforce it—and complicate wide-area jamming.
Terrestrial timing resilience: several countries are exploring or reviving eLoran-type systems, low-frequency, long-range radionavigation, well-suited to providing robust timing references for power grids and telecom networks. The United Kingdom has moved early with a national effort targeting an initial capability around 2028, linked to a national timing initiative.
The direction is not “satellite versus terrestrial,” but layered resilience: authenticated GNSS, LEO augmentation, and terrestrial PNT, especially for timing.
Harden equipment and procedures
The third workstream is less visible but decisive: making platforms, networks, and users resilient to GNSS disruption.
On the equipment side, this includes:
- more resilient antennas and receivers
- algorithms that flag inconsistent or manipulated signals
- multi-sensor fusion across multiple GNSS constellations, inertial navigation, and in some cases vision-based navigation (cameras, terrain matching)
On the operational side, resilience depends on monitoring and training:
- mapping recurrent interference zones
- sharing spectrum and incident data across authorities and operators
- exercising “GNSS-degraded” procedures in aviation, maritime operations, and military training
Continuity as the new operating culture
All of these measures point to one objective: continuity of operations, flights, shipping routes, and critical services, even when GNSS is contested.
For crewed aviation, that means crews able to fall back on terrestrial aids, air traffic services able to detect anomalies and reroute traffic, and airports retaining no-GNSS approach options.
For drones and autonomous systems, it means designing and testing for GNSS denial from day one, with multiple navigation sources and clear degradation modes.
For ground-based air defense and command-and-control, it means clocks and synchronization protocols that can hold for hours, or even days, without a trusted satellite reference.
The most significant change may be cultural. Across Europe, GNSS is increasingly treated not as an invisible service that always works, but as one layer in a multi-layer PNT architecture, one that must be monitored, reinforced, and, when necessary, temporarily substituted.
That shift, planning for GNSS loss as a normal condition rather than a rare contingency, is Europe’s real plan B.
Article 1: GPS/GNSS jamming: how Europe is building its plan B
