Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin and Stanford (Todd Humphries and others) analyzed the data of the International GNSS service (IGS) and discovered 75 days from 2019 through April 2026 year, when receivers across Europe, Greenland and Canada simultaneously recorded a sharp short-term (Less 10 seconds) drop in GPS signal level.
For reference: The International GNSS Service is a global voluntary association, consisting of over 200 scientific and educational institutions. It provides high-precision data of global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) for the development of fundamental science, geodesy and navigation.
Geometrical analysis showed, that the source of interference is at a height above 1200 km, that is, in space. In February 2026 In 2010, stations in the Netherlands and Norway recorded the raw signal. The analysis of the difference in arrival time made it possible to determine the source with an accuracy of several meters.
Identified: satellite Space 2546 (NORAD 45608), launched in May 2020 year. It is part of the Russian EKS early warning system (Unified space system) — six satellites in strongly elliptical orbits "Molniya", which "hang" over the Northern Hemisphere for a long time.
During each event, at least one ESA satellite was in the visibility zone. The obstacles were extremely powerful (hundreds of times stronger than a normal GPS signal) in the range 1577,5 MHz (GPS/Galileo) and also affected the Chinese BeiDou, but did not influence to the Russian GLONASS.
The study was published in preprint on arXiv in June 2026 year (Article "Chasing Lightning"). The conclusions are confirmed by independent European teams. Events took place mainly on working days (Tuesday-Thursday), indicating test/targeted actions.
This is one of the first documented cases of strong GNSS jamming from space.
Source: https://universemagazine.com