May 2026: Weeks before the SpaceX IPO, Starlink has shut down a GPS alternative that most customers never knew about. Other customers found access to built-in location features hidden away in a Debug menu to get coarse position estimates — a feature of immense value to those in regions with rising GNSS interference.
Starlink is of key interest to low Earth orbit (LEO) PNT research. “The beauty of Starlink as a backup to GNSS is that it’s such a different system—frequencies 10 times higher, bandwidths 10 to 100 times wider, power 100 to 1,000 times stronger, [and] satellites 100 times more proliferated,” said the RNL’s Dr. Todd Humphreys. Current PNT solution accuracy is still limited compared to GNSS. The RNL demonstrated mock fused LEO GNSS — with Starlink satellites supplying real-time clocks and orbit corrections — with solutions accurate within 10 meters, albeit with minutes-long processing delays. Dr. Humphreys asserted that “we’re now refining our techniques so it can be done in tens of seconds rather than tens of minutes.”
Starlink may have shut down its “cheat code,” but many other methods of its exploitation remain. For further discussion of PNT solutions using Starlink and other LEO satellite constellations—including a feature from RNL alumnus Dr. Zak Kassas—read more with Ars Technica.
