Review – HR 4344 Introduced – Resilient PNT Demonstration

Back in July Rep Mullin (D,CA) introduced HR 4344, the Resilient Low Earth Orbit Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (Resilient LEO PNT) Act. The bill would require the Department of the Air Force (DAF) to “carry out a capability demonstration project, to be known as the “Commercial Low Earth Orbit Resilient Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Capability Demonstration””. The “Pathfinder Program” would be conducted subject to the availability of appropriations, effectively passing the spending authorization requirement to the appropriations committees.

I can find no bills in the 118th Congress that look to be similar to HR 4344. ‘Positioning, navigation and timing’ topics are of interest here because of the use of the ‘timing’ feature in these systems by a number of SCADA systems to coordinate operations at disparate locations.

Moving Forward

While Mullan is not a member of the House Armed Services Committee to which this bill was assigned for consideration, one of this two cosponsors, Rep Wittman (R,VA) is a member. This means that there may be sufficient influence to see this bill considered in committee. Lacking any specific funding authorization, I see nothing in this bill that would engender any organized opposition. Having said that, I also suspect that there could still be some resistance to supporting a bill that would potentially cost an unspecified, but significant, amount of money. Still, I would suspect that there would be some level of bipartisan support for this bill were it to be considered.

Commentary

The ability to ‘restore service’ in a timely manner is going to be an increasing requirement for DOD satellite services. This means that the vendor is going to need to demonstrate the capability to launch replacement satellites on a near demand basis.  Depending on the size and weight of the satellite, there are an increasing number of launch providers that could provide relatively quick response launch capabilities. This also means that the PNT service provider is probably going to have to have some number of satellites on hand, available to launch and activate when needed.

 

For more information on the provisions of this bill, including additional commentary on satellite resiliency, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/hr-4344-introduced-resilient-pnt - subscription required.