Russia’s GPS Plays April Fool’s Joke?

Although technically the glitch occurred on April 2, 2014, it was close enough to April Fool’s Day (striking at 1 am, Moscow time, on April 2) for some to wonder whether it was some kind of joke or hoax that caused Russia’s GLONASS global positioning network to go down briefly. That seems unlikely, though, since (1) April Fool’s Day is not widely celebrated in Russia and (2) no clear explanation of the event (such as hackers or hoaxers admitting their role in the event) has been forthcoming.

Nonetheless, in the early morning hours of April 2, 2014, Russia’s GLONASS global positioning system (similar to the United States’ GPS network) became unreliable and nonfunctional for over ten hours. What caused this to happen? Is such an event possible here in the States?

A Little History

“GLONASS” stands for Global Navigation Satellite System. It’s operated by the Russian Aerospace Defense Forces and is a satellite navigation system similar to the Global Positioning System (GPS) network widely used in the USA.

GLONASS was started in 1976 and was basically operational by 1995. However, in the years between 1995 and the end of the first decade of the new millennium, the system had fallen into disrepair. Under Vladimir Putin the Russian government repaired and upgraded the system, getting it fully functional once again late in 2011. The Russian Federal Space Agency spends the equivalent of millions of dollars each year to keep the system functioning. Some sources claim it consumes more than a quarter of the agency’s entire budget.

What Happened?

On April 2, 2014, a Canadian geoservices company operations executive noticed the problem. He and others realized that nearly all of the GLONASS satellites (24 in total) had started sending erroneous information about their locations. Eventually all 24 GLONASS satellites gave wrong information at some point. This affected positioning networks around the world, not just in Russia, since use of GLONASS satellites is not limited to Russia alone.

When a person uses a GPS device to determine his location, that device is in contact with at least three satellites. This is required in order to assure accuracy. If each satellite’s position in space is recorded in error, information being transmitted between receivers and the satellite will give false readings. In other words, it quickly becomes evident to a GLONASS user that something is wrong with the system when his receiver tells him his position is somewhere other than where he actually is. Thus the problem was almost immediately recognized worldwide. One source called it an “unprecedented” event.

This might seem like little more than an inconvenience to most of us, if we’re just using a GPS device in our car to get from Point A to Point B. But shipping, transportation, the military, and a host of governmental and nongovernmental agencies rely on GPS networks every moment. When a system goes down, it’s no exaggeration to state that lives can be endangered.

During the April 2 crisis the satellites gave readings of “illegal ephemeris” and/or “failure.” The term “ephemeris” comes from the Greek word for “calendar” or “diary”; nowadays it refers to information giving the location of astronomical objects (including satellites, both natural and manmade) at certain times. So, basically, a satellite giving a reading of “illegal ephemeris” is stating that it knows the location readings it’s giving are incorrect. It’s suspected that bad ephemerides (the plural form of ephemeris) had been uploaded, accidentally or intentionally, to the GLONASS satellites and for some reason the erroneous information became functional at 1:00 a.m. on April 2.

What May Have Caused the Event?

At this writing no definitive explanation for the cause of the outage has been forthcoming from Russian authorities. However, some experts suspect that someone incorrectly uploaded corrections to the satellites’ ephemerides.

At any rate, it took the Russian leaders approximately eleven hours to restore the satellites to their normal functioning capacity. It could not be done immediately, due to the vastness of the Russian topography. System operators could not address the problem until satellites passed close enough to their location to be in range to have their data reset. While waiting for the problem to be fixed, some providers advised their users to turn off GLONASS receivers.

A similar problem could conceivably occur with systems based in other countries, such as the People’s Republic of China’s Beidou regional system or their global COMPASS system; the European Union’s Galileo System; India’s IRNSS system; Japan’s QZSS system; as well as the United States’ Global Positioning System. However, at least one source has noted that not only has the US-based GPS network never had such an outage, it has also gained a reputation for dependability, flexibility, and speed of service.

Russia’s GPS Plays April Fool’s Joke?