The Air Force May Ditch GPS for Earth's Magnetic Field
The U.S. Air Force, concerned that adversaries might target its fleet of GPS satellites in wartime, is looking into Earth’s magnetic field as an alternative, according to Defense One.Accurate and extremely difficult to jam, the magnetic field could be used as a means of navigation for ground troops, ships at sea, and aircraft. The magnetic field could also guide missiles to their targets with an accuracy of just over 30 feet.
About time GPS was always vulnerable. Kind of funny since we already use magnetic heading as a back up now. For autonomous usage there was an inertial navigation system that only needs latitude/longitude keyed in on start up. My favorite was an astro-tracker which could use sun/stars/planets to get the most accurate heading references, used on our B-52's when I worked on them in the 70's. These alt systems don't give altitude but that's what the windows are for, jk the regular flight instrumentation does that and its triple redundant.