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For most of us, GPS is simply the invisible infrastructure that makes modern life work. It guides planes, steers container ships, synchronises financial networks, and tells your phone where to order your next meal. Yet the system was designed in an era before widespread electronic warfare, and its fundamental physics have always carried a quiet vulnerability: the satellites sit so far away that their signals arrive at Earth’s surface barely stronger than background noise. That weakness is now being actively exploited, and a California startup believes it has the architecture to fix it.
Xona Space Systems is building a constellation called Pulsar, consisting of 258 satellites in low-Earth orbit. The company says its first six production satellites are scheduled to launch in October 2026, with early commercial service beginning in 2027. Once the full network is operational, Xona claims customers will be able to pinpoint their location anywhere on Earth to within several centimetres.
Why Altitude Is the Root of GPS’s Weakness
The GPS constellation, along with Europe’s Galileo, Russia’s GLONASS, and China’s BeiDou, operates from medium-Earth orbit at roughly 20,000 kilometres above the planet. That altitude is useful because a small number of satellites can cover the entire globe, but it comes at a steep cost in signal strength. By the time those transmissions travel 20,000 kilometres and reach a receiver, they are extraordinarily faint.
Xona’s Pulsar satellites would orbit at low-Earth altitude, far closer to the surface, which means their signals arrive with roughly 100 times the power of a conventional GPS signal. Adrien Perkins, co-founder and VP of engineering at Xona Space Systems, explained the practical consequence to Ars Technica directly. “That added power means that we can get into that indoor environment that GPS can’t get to today,” Perkins said. “Our higher power allows you to get into those jamming environments a lot further than you would with GPS by itself.”
That matters because GPS jamming has moved from a niche military concern to a genuine civilian problem. Commercial flights across parts of Europe and the Middle East have reported navigation disruptions. Maritime vessels have logged false position data near contested waterways. Even consumer smartphone apps have been affected in regions where ground-based jammers are active. A signal 100 times stronger does not make jamming impossible, but it raises the cost and complexity of disruption considerably.
The Indoor and Urban Accuracy Gap That Pulsar Targets
Beyond jamming resilience, the stronger signal opens up use cases that GPS has never reliably served. Dense urban environments, where tall buildings scatter and block satellite signals, have always been a weak point for conventional navigation. Thick forest canopy degrades accuracy further. And indoors, GPS is essentially useless for precision work.
Centimetre-level accuracy indoors and in urban canyons would have significant implications across several industries. Autonomous vehicles navigating city streets need precise positioning that does not degrade when surrounded by high-rise buildings. Warehouse robotics and indoor logistics operations currently rely on separate local positioning systems precisely because GPS cannot penetrate. Surveying, construction, and precision agriculture all operate with workarounds that a stronger, more accurate signal could simplify substantially.
The 258-satellite constellation is a meaningful number in this context. Low-Earth orbit satellites move quickly relative to the ground, meaning any single satellite is only visible from a given location for a short window. A large constellation ensures that enough satellites are always above the horizon to provide continuous coverage and the geometric spread needed for accurate positioning calculations.
What This Means for the Asia-Pacific Region
For Malaysia and Singapore, the relevance is both practical and strategic. Both countries sit in equatorial Southeast Asia, a region where urban density is high, forest cover is extensive, and maritime traffic through the Strait of Malacca is among the busiest in the world. GPS jamming incidents, while less publicised in this region than in Europe or the Middle East, are a known concern for aviation authorities and port operators.
Singapore’s Changi Airport and Port of Singapore, both operating at extraordinary throughput, depend on precise navigation infrastructure. Any commercial service that offers stronger, more jam-resistant positioning signals would be of direct interest to the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore and the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore, even if regulatory engagement with a new foreign navigation provider would take years to formalise.
For Malaysian operators, the potential for reliable indoor and urban positioning is particularly relevant given the pace of smart city development in Greater Kuala Lumpur and the growth of logistics and e-commerce fulfilment infrastructure across the peninsula. Autonomous vehicle pilots and drone delivery trials, both areas where Malaysian agencies have shown interest, are precisely the applications that centimetre-level accuracy would enable.
It is worth noting that Xona’s timeline is still early-stage. The first production satellites launch in late 2026, and building out 258 satellites takes years and substantial capital. The company has not yet detailed the full commercial pricing model or the receiver hardware ecosystem that end users would need. GPS’s dominance is not simply a matter of signal strength; it reflects decades of embedded infrastructure, chipset integration, and regulatory acceptance across every major industry.
Still, the direction of travel is significant. The convergence of cheaper small-satellite manufacturing, growing concern about GPS vulnerability, and demand for indoor and urban precision positioning has created genuine commercial logic for a low-Earth orbit navigation layer. If Xona executes on its 2026 launch schedule and delivers the accuracy it claims, it would represent the most meaningful structural challenge to GPS’s monopoly on civilian navigation in a generation, and the industries most exposed to GPS’s limitations, from aviation to autonomous logistics, will be watching closely.
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