Mystery GPS jammer in Iran becomes test for NASA satellites’ capabilities
Mystery GPS jammer in Iran becomes test for NASA satellites’ capabilities
伊朗神秘 GPS 干扰器成为测试 NASA 卫星能力的试金石
NASA satellites designed to observe cyclone wind speeds and collapsing ice sheets have also proven capable of identifying the approximate locations of GPS jammers. That could help monitor high-risk areas for aircraft and ships navigating the growing prevalence of GPS interference worldwide. 旨在观测气旋风速和冰盖崩塌的 NASA 卫星，现已被证明能够识别 GPS 干扰器的大致位置。这有助于为在全球范围内日益严重的 GPS 干扰环境中航行的飞机和船舶监测高风险区域。
Two different NASA satellite systems showed how they could locate a known but mysterious GPS jammer within several kilometers of its position in Iran, according to an experiment by Sean Gorman, CEO and cofounder of the location-based technology company Zephr.xyz that was detailed in the magazine GPS World. 根据定位技术公司 Zephr.xyz 的首席执行官兼联合创始人肖恩·戈尔曼（Sean Gorman）在《GPS World》杂志上详细介绍的一项实验，两套不同的 NASA 卫星系统展示了它们如何定位伊朗境内一个已知但神秘的 GPS 干扰器，误差范围在几公里之内。
Such jammers use strong signals to overpower the weaker radio signals coming from US-operated GPS satellites and other global navigation satellite systems. 此类干扰器利用强信号来压制来自美国运营的 GPS 卫星及其他全球导航卫星系统的较弱无线电信号。
Such NASA satellites cannot perform “near-real time monitoring” or pinpoint the exact location of GPS jammers, said Clara Chew, principal scientist and lead of the GNSS systems and data team at the California-based satellite manufacturer Muon Space, who was not involved in the study. But Chew told Ars that identifying the approximate locations of GPS jammers “could potentially be helpful for flight planning” or for “indicating high risk areas for maritime shipping.” 未参与该研究的加州卫星制造商 Muon Space 的首席科学家兼 GNSS 系统与数据团队负责人克拉拉·丘（Clara Chew）表示，这些 NASA 卫星无法进行“近实时监测”，也无法精确定位 GPS 干扰器的确切位置。但丘告诉《Ars》，识别 GPS 干扰器的大致位置“可能有助于飞行规划”或“标示海上航运的高风险区域”。
One of the NASA satellite systems, the Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS), has eight microsatellites that detect GPS signals reflected from ocean surfaces to measure wind speeds within the eyewalls of hurricanes, tropical cyclones, and typhoons. When an Earth-based jammer turns on, the effect creates a huge footprint in the reflected GPS signals that can show up hundreds of kilometers from the jammer’s location. NASA 的卫星系统之一——飓风全球导航卫星系统（CYGNSS）拥有八颗微型卫星，它们通过探测从海面反射的 GPS 信号来测量飓风、热带气旋和台风眼壁内的风速。当陆基干扰器开启时，其影响会在反射的 GPS 信号中产生一个巨大的足迹，该足迹甚至可以在距离干扰器数百公里的地方显现出来。
The other satellite system, NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR), typically uses radar imaging to continually map and track changes across the Earth’s surface, including earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, and ice sheet collapses. GPS jammer emissions create streaks in the NISAR radar imagery that run perpendicular to flight direction—meaning that “each streak encodes the jammer’s direction relative to the satellite’s ground track,” Gorman wrote in his GPS World article. 另一套卫星系统——NASA 与印度空间研究组织合作的合成孔径雷达（NISAR）通常利用雷达成像持续测绘和追踪地球表面的变化，包括地震、海啸、火山和冰盖崩塌。戈尔曼在《GPS World》的文章中写道，GPS 干扰器的发射信号会在 NISAR 雷达图像中产生垂直于飞行方向的条纹，这意味着“每一条条纹都编码了干扰器相对于卫星地面轨迹的方向”。
“CYGNSS sees the jammer’s effect on reflected GPS signals, offering an indirect measurement spread across hundreds of specular reflection points,” Gorman wrote. “NISAR sees the jammer’s emissions directly in its own receiver, which is a more precise measurement, but only along the satellite’s narrow ground track.” “CYGNSS 观测到的是干扰器对反射 GPS 信号的影响，提供了一种分布在数百个镜面反射点上的间接测量，”戈尔曼写道。“NISAR 则在其接收器中直接观测到干扰器的发射信号，这是一种更精确的测量，但仅限于卫星狭窄的地面轨迹范围内。”
Comparing satellite systems
卫星系统对比
To validate the NASA satellite systems’ performances using a known jammer location, Gorman and colleagues first used “independent signals intelligence” to identify and locate a GPS jammer operating near the city of Shiraz in Iran. This mystery jammer has been active since the start of 2026 and has continued operating at even higher power since the war began with the US and Israel attacking Iran on February 28, 2026. 为了利用已知的干扰器位置验证 NASA 卫星系统的性能，戈尔曼及其同事首先使用“独立信号情报”识别并定位了伊朗设拉子市附近运行的一个 GPS 干扰器。这个神秘的干扰器自 2026 年初以来一直处于活跃状态，并且自 2026 年 2 月 28 日美国和以色列袭击伊朗引发战争以来，它一直以更高的功率运行。
The researchers then ran a controlled experiment that looked at the NASA satellite data during two “jammer on” dates from January 8 and January 20, 2026, along with two “jammer off” dates from December 15 and December 27, 2025. They applied several detection and signal analysis techniques to both the CYGNSS and NISAR data in order to come up with the best approximations for the GPS jammer’s location. 研究人员随后进行了一项对照实验，查看了 2026 年 1 月 8 日和 1 月 20 日两个“干扰器开启”日期，以及 2025 年 12 月 15 日和 12 月 27 日两个“干扰器关闭”日期的 NASA 卫星数据。他们对 CYGNSS 和 NISAR 的数据应用了多种探测和信号分析技术，以得出 GPS 干扰器位置的最佳近似值。
The experiment showed that CYGNSS located the jammer within 4.33 kilometers of the ground truth, with a circular error probable of 3.48 kilometers. The latter means 50 percent of the estimates from repeated analyses on many similar jammers would fall within 3.48 kilometers. By comparison, NISAR located the jammer to within 6.26 kilometers of the ground truth while demonstrating a circular error probable of 6.88 kilometers. So CYGNSS came out on top. 实验显示，CYGNSS 将干扰器定位在距离真实位置 4.33 公里的范围内，圆概率误差（CEP）为 3.48 公里。后者意味着对许多类似干扰器进行重复分析时，50% 的估算结果将落在 3.48 公里范围内。相比之下，NISAR 将干扰器定位在距离真实位置 6.26 公里的范围内，圆概率误差为 6.88 公里。因此，CYGNSS 的表现更胜一筹。
Gorman and colleagues also attempted to combine “CYGNSS’s wide-area sensitivity with NISAR’s geometric precision” in a fused approach. That fused result located the jammer to within 4.69 kilometers with a circular error probable of 7.85 kilometers, which fell short of the standalone CYGNSS result but still showed how “two independent physics arriving at similar locations builds confidence that neither sensor is producing an artifact,” Gorman wrote. 戈尔曼及其同事还尝试通过融合方法，结合“CYGNSS 的广域灵敏度与 NISAR 的几何精度”。该融合结果将干扰器定位在 4.69 公里范围内，圆概率误差为 7.85 公里。虽然这略逊于 CYGNSS 的独立结果，但戈尔曼写道，这仍然展示了“两种独立的物理机制得出相似的位置，增强了人们对传感器未产生伪影的信心”。
It is unusual to see worse performance with the fused approach compared to using CYGNSS alone, said Todd Humphreys, director of the Wireless Networking and Communications Group and the Radionavigation Laboratory at The University of Texas at Austin, in correspondence with Ars. But he said that can happen when calculating the circular error probable based on real-world error data—and he praised the overall work for achieving “such accurate results” using publicly available satellite data. 德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校无线网络与通信小组及无线电导航实验室主任托德·汉弗莱斯（Todd Humphreys）在与《Ars》的通信中表示，融合方法的效果不如单独使用 CYGNSS 的情况并不常见。但他指出，当基于真实世界的误差数据计算圆概率误差时，这种情况是有可能发生的，并称赞这项整体工作利用公开的卫星数据取得了“如此精确的结果”。
The demonstration built on earlier research by Chew and colleagues that used CYGNSS data to map regions rife with GPS interference and identify possible jamming sources. “My work didn’t try to geolocate jammers like Gorman’s does—I was simply gridding the noise variable to 9 km and associating ‘hot spots’ with known conflict areas around the world,” Chew explained. 此次演示建立在丘及其同事早期的研究基础之上，他们曾利用 CYGNSS 数据绘制 GPS 干扰严重区域的地图并识别可能的干扰源。“我的工作并没有像戈尔曼那样尝试对干扰器进行地理定位——我只是将噪声变量网格化为 9 公里，并将‘热点’与世界各地的已知冲突地区联系起来，”丘解释道。
Keeping tabs on GPS jamming
持续关注 GPS 干扰
Such NASA satellites cannot provide “near-realtime monitoring of GPS jammers” because it can take up to several days for collected data to become publicly available, Chew said. She would be “surprised” if this could deliver very precise geolocation of jammers, but still expressed interest in seeing such methods repeated on other known jammers to measure… 丘表示，这些 NASA 卫星无法提供“GPS 干扰器的近实时监测”，因为收集到的数据可能需要几天时间才能公开。她表示，如果这种方法能实现对干扰器的极精确地理定位，她会感到“惊讶”，但她仍然表示有兴趣看到这种方法在其他已知干扰器上进行重复测试，以衡量……