Starlink shuts down its GPS-style cheat code. Researchers may unlock it anyway.
Starlink shuts down its GPS-style cheat code. Researchers may unlock it anyway.
星链关闭了其类似 GPS 的“作弊码”，但研究人员或许仍能将其破解
Starlink is unceremoniously shutting down a GPS-style feature that most of the Internet satellite provider’s customers probably never realized existed. But that won’t stop broader momentum toward harnessing Starlink’s satellite constellation as a navigation alternative—especially when GPS jamming and spoofing have become more widespread.
星链（Starlink）正在悄然关闭一项类似 GPS 的功能，大多数该卫星互联网服务的用户可能从未意识到它的存在。但这并不会阻碍人们利用星链卫星星座作为导航替代方案的整体趋势——尤其是在 GPS 干扰和欺骗行为日益普遍的情况下。
The Starlink satellite constellation owned by SpaceX is designed to provide communications services first and foremost, rather than pinpointing users’ locations like GPS and other global navigation satellite systems (GNSS). However, SpaceX publicly acknowledged in a May 2025 letter to the US Federal Communications Commission that Starlink could deliver positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) services. A handful of savvy Starlink customers had even been accessing Starlink PNT capability for several years until Starlink recently decided to shut down access, according to PCMag.
SpaceX 旗下的星链卫星星座首要任务是提供通信服务，而非像 GPS 或其他全球导航卫星系统（GNSS）那样精确定位用户。然而，SpaceX 在 2025 年 5 月致美国联邦通信委员会（FCC）的一封信中公开承认，星链能够提供定位、导航和授时（PNT）服务。据 PCMag 报道，一些精明的星链用户甚至已经使用星链的 PNT 功能好几年了，直到星链最近决定关闭该访问权限。
“The beauty of Starlink as a backup to GNSS is that it’s such a different system—frequencies 10 times higher, bandwidths 10 to 100 times wider, power 100 to 1,000 times stronger, satellites 100 times more proliferated,” said Todd Humphreys, director of the Wireless Networking and Communications Group (WNCG) and the Radionavigation Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin, in correspondence with Ars.
“星链作为 GNSS 备份的优势在于它是一个完全不同的系统——频率高出 10 倍，带宽宽出 10 到 100 倍，功率强出 100 到 1,000 倍，卫星数量更是多出 100 倍，”德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校无线网络与通信小组（WNCG）及无线电导航实验室主任 Todd Humphreys 在与 Ars 的通信中表示。
The built-in location feature was previously accessible through the Starlink mobile app’s Debug Data section. It enabled users to give local networks access to their Starlink dish’s “precise latitude, longitude, and altitude with no authentication required,” according to Paul Sutherland, a software developer, in a blog post. Starlink dishes have their own GPS receivers to help pinpoint their own locations so they can find the nearest Starlink satellites. But the user location feature also offered an option to “use Starlink positioning exclusively.”
该内置定位功能此前可通过星链移动应用的“调试数据”（Debug Data）部分访问。软件开发人员 Paul Sutherland 在一篇博文中指出，该功能允许用户在无需身份验证的情况下，向本地网络提供其星链天线的“精确经度、纬度和海拔高度”。星链天线本身配有 GPS 接收器，用于确定自身位置以寻找最近的星链卫星。但该用户定位功能还提供了一个“仅使用星链定位”的选项。
Humphreys has described that Starlink PNT capability as a “cheat code for those who knew about it,” because it even worked in regions with GPS interference. That has proven especially useful for users who installed the latest Starlink dishes on recreational vehicles and boats. In one case study highlighted by PCMag, a sailboat cruising through the Red Sea with the Starlink Mini dish—a user device released in 2024—was able to exclusively rely on Starlink positioning data despite GPS jamming and spoofing.
Humphreys 将星链的 PNT 功能描述为“知情者的作弊码”，因为它甚至在存在 GPS 干扰的地区也能工作。这对于在房车和船只上安装最新款星链天线的用户来说尤为有用。在 PCMag 重点介绍的一个案例中，一艘航行在红海的帆船使用 2024 年发布的星链 Mini 天线，在 GPS 受到干扰和欺骗的情况下，依然能够完全依赖星链的定位数据。
But on April 21, Starlink users received email notifications telling them that dish location data would no longer be available as of May 20, 2026. There was no specific rationale given for the decision, and SpaceX did not respond to an Ars request for comment.
然而，4 月 21 日，星链用户收到电子邮件通知，称从 2026 年 5 月 20 日起，天线定位数据将不再可用。官方并未给出该决定的具体理由，SpaceX 也未回应 Ars 的置评请求。
Why Starlink works when GPS doesn’t
为什么 GPS 失效时星链依然有效
Starlink has drawn increased attention as a navigation alternative at a time when GPS jamming and spoofing have become widespread worldwide, impacting shipping routes from Europe to Asia and disrupting hundreds of flights on a daily basis. Jamming involves broadcasting strong signals to overpower the relatively weak radio signals coming from GPS and other global navigation satellite systems. Spoofing relies on transmitting false signals that mimic authentic satellite signals to trick signal receivers into calculating erroneous positions for aircraft and other users.
在全球范围内 GPS 干扰和欺骗日益普遍，影响从欧洲到亚洲的航运路线并每天干扰数百个航班的背景下，星链作为导航替代方案受到了越来越多的关注。干扰是指通过广播强信号来压制来自 GPS 和其他全球导航卫星系统的相对微弱的无线电信号。欺骗则是通过发送模仿真实卫星信号的虚假信号，诱导信号接收器计算出错误的飞机或其他用户位置。
Global navigation satellite systems such as GPS are vulnerable to jamming because they transmit relatively weaker signals from higher orbital altitudes farther away from Earth. But Starlink and other low-Earth orbit communication constellations transmit higher-power signals in the Ku-band with wider bandwidths that are difficult for adversaries to disrupt through jamming. Starlink is also much more resilient to spoofing because its user dishes are phased array antennas capable of focusing in the direction of a fast-moving Starlink satellite to detect its specific signal.
GPS 等全球导航卫星系统容易受到干扰，因为它们从距离地球更远的轨道高度发射相对较弱的信号。但星链和其他低地球轨道通信星座在 Ku 波段发射功率更高、带宽更宽的信号，对手很难通过干扰来破坏。星链对欺骗的抵御能力也强得多，因为其用户天线是相控阵天线，能够聚焦于快速移动的星链卫星方向，从而检测其特定信号。
Starlink’s PNT capability relies on round-trip time measurements between the user dish and a single satellite at a time, Humphreys said. The two-way communication between the user dish and satellite also relies on encrypted signals and can incorporate user authentication features. By comparison, civilian GPS receivers mostly use omnidirectional antennas that passively receive unencrypted signals from many different points in the sky—they calculate a user’s position by receiving one-way “pseudorange” measurements from many satellites at once to ensure maximum accuracy. That makes them much more susceptible to false signals from adversarial spoofing.
Humphreys 表示，星链的 PNT 功能依赖于用户天线与单颗卫星之间的往返时间测量。用户天线与卫星之间的双向通信依赖于加密信号，并可结合用户身份验证功能。相比之下，民用 GPS 接收器大多使用全向天线，被动接收来自天空中多个不同点的未加密信号——它们通过同时接收来自多颗卫星的单向“伪距”测量值来计算用户位置，以确保最大精度。这使得它们更容易受到对手欺骗信号的影响。
But Starlink PNT’s accuracy is still limited compared with standard GPS. Humphreys and his colleagues have demonstrated how a mock Starlink service can produce navigation and timing solutions with 10-meter-level accuracy if Starlink supplies the real-time clock and orbit corrections—albeit only after a minutes-long processing delay. “We’re now refining our techniques so it can be done in tens of seconds rather than tens of minutes,” Humphreys told Ars.
但与标准 GPS 相比，星链 PNT 的精度仍然有限。Humphreys 和他的同事们已经证明，如果星链提供实时时钟和轨道校正，模拟的星链服务可以产生 10 米级别的导航和授时方案——尽管这需要几分钟的处理延迟。Humphreys 告诉 Ars：“我们目前正在改进技术，以便在几十秒内而非几十分钟内完成。”
One challenge is that Starlink’s round-trip time measurements are currently less accurate than the pseudorange technique used by dedicated global navigation satellite systems, Humphreys said. That is in part because Starlink satellites have less precise timekeeping capabilities compared to dedicated GNSS satellites equipped with atomic clocks. The fact that Starlink PNT is limited to communication with a single satellite at a time also constrains performance, whereas receiving multiple satellite measurement signals from many different angles could improve its accuracy. That goes back to how Starlink user dishes can only form a beam to a single satellite at any given time, Humphreys said.
Humphreys 指出，一个挑战在于星链的往返时间测量目前不如专用全球导航卫星系统使用的伪距技术精确。部分原因是与配备原子钟的专用 GNSS 卫星相比，星链卫星的计时能力精度较低。星链 PNT 仅限于与单颗卫星通信的事实也限制了性能，而从多个不同角度接收多颗卫星的测量信号本可以提高其精度。Humphreys 表示，这归根结底是因为星链用户天线在任何给定时间只能形成指向一颗卫星的波束。
Despite the current performance constraints, Starlink customers who used the location data feature have expressed dismay at losing it. But SpaceX may have decided to block access because it didn’t want…
尽管目前存在性能限制，但使用过该定位数据功能的星链用户对失去它表示失望。然而，SpaceX 可能决定阻止访问，因为它不想……