Subject: [NEXTEL-1] U.S. Army awarded contracts to Russian GPS jammer vendor

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2003 14:49:21 -0500

U.S. Army Awarded Contracts To Russian GPS Jammer Vendor

Army contracts totaling $192,000 last year went to a Russian company
identified in news reports as a supplier of GPS jamming equipment to
Iraq.

http://computerworld.com/newsletter/0%2C4902%2C79783%2C0.html?nlid=PM
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U.S. Army awarded contracts to Russian GPS jammer vendor

By Bob Brewin
MARCH 27, 2003

The U.S. Army awarded $192,000 in
contracts in 2002 to a Russian company
identified in news reports as a supplier
of Global Positioning System (GPS)
jamming equipment to Iraq.

Moscow-based Aviaconversiya Ltd. has
denied selling the jamming equipment to
Iraq, according to the news reports.
Officials there couldn't be reached for
comment this week, despite repeated
attempts by Computerworld to do so.

On Tuesday, President Bush personally
complained to Russian Premier Vladimir
Putin about the sale of Russian military
equipment to Iraq, according to White
House spokesman Ari Fleischer. In a
press briefing that day, Fleischer said
the White House was "concerned" about
reports "of ongoing cooperation and support to Iraqi military forces being provided by a
Russian
company that produces GPS jamming equipment. ... We have credible evidence that Russian
companies provided the assistance and the prohibited hardware to the Iraqi regime.

"The President raised with President Putin our ongoing concerns about support [that] would
be
provided for Iraqi military forces by Russian companies that produced the equipment," he
said. Putin
promised to look into the issue, Fleischer said.

Iraq evidently tried to use those jammers against U.S. forces after the U.S.-led coalition
began strikes
against Iraqi targets last week. "We have noticed some attempts by the Iraqis to use a GPS
jamming
system that they obtained from another nation. We have destroyed all six of those jammers
in the last
two nights' airstrikes. I'm pleased to say they had no effect on us," Air Force Maj. Gen.
Victor
Renuart, of the U.S. Central Command, said yesterday.

Air Force Lt. Col. Ken McClellan, a Defense Department spokesman, acknowledged that the
Army
had let contracts to Aviaconversiya. The company is included on an online list of all
Defense
Department contracts worth more than $25,000 that were awarded in 2002 (download PDF from
Defenselink). But he declined to provide any details.

"Because of the sensitive nature of what constitutes exact military capabilities, or
potential
vulnerabilities, I doubt seriously whether you'll find anyone willing to go beyond the
previously released
information from Defenselink or Commerce Business Daily," McClellan said in an e-mail
reply to
questions about the contract.

GPS experts said the Army most likely bought equipment from Aviaconversiya to test its
capabilities,
which in turn would help U.S. forces avoid jamming or attack jammers being used against
them. But,
James Hasik, a GPS consultant in Atlanta, said he doubts that the jammers would have much
effect
on GPS-equipped smart weapons used in Iraq such as the Tomahawk cruise missile or Joint
Direct
Attack Munitions, because they have backup guidance systems such as gyroscope-based
inertial
navigation systems.

Richard Langley, a professor of geodesy at the University of New Brunswick in Canada,
agreed and
said the jammers would also have a hard time interfering with an encrypted military GPS
code
broadcast at a frequency of 1227.6 MHz. But the jammers could interfere with signals
broadcast at
1575.42 MHz, a band used by commercial GPS receivers. Such receivers could have been
bought by
individual troops, but the Army tried to derail that practice in January. In the January
2003 "Pathfinder"
newsletter (download PDF), the Army warned troops of the "severe risks" associated with
the use of
commercial GPS receivers on the battlefield. The newsletter is published by the Army's
Program
Manager GPS in Fort Monmouth, N.J.

"Never use them for calling in your critical position information," the newsletter
cautioned, urging the
use of a crypto-protected Precision Lightweight GPS Receiver (PLGR) made by Rockwell
Collins Inc.
in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The newsletter said the PLGR is "your best protection against
spoofing and
jamming and the mission failure or death that could result from their effect on a
commercial" receiver.

Hasik said jamming of civilian signals could be detrimental if pilots of aging aircraft
such as the Air
Force A-10 or the Navy F-14 have bought handheld commercial receivers to make up for those
planes'
lack of built-in GPS. Jamming could interfere with critical navigation functions of the
receivers, he said.

GPS receivers are susceptible to jamming because of the weak nature of the signals as they
travel to
receivers on earth from 24 satellites in space, Hasik said.

This week's warning about the sale of Russian GPS jammers to Iraq and the subsequent
attack on
them illustrate the Pentagon's concern about interference with one of the core
technologies of its
smart weapons systems. Earlier this year, McClellan said the Pentagon had a "somewhat
serious
concern about an online article in 'Phrack' that detailed how to build a homemade GPS
jammer" (see
story).

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