By Nick David, Editorial Lead, SatNews
Xona Space Systems put its first six commercial navigation satellites in orbit last week. On Thursday, its CEO laid out why the U.S. needs them: the backup most commercial users rely on today comes from China.
“We actually just launched our first six satellites last week that are going to start providing commercial service early next year,” Xona co-founder and CEO Brian Manning said on the MilSat Symposium panel “GPS Under Attack: Jamming, Spoofing, and the PNT Fight” at Silicon Valley Space Week, moderated by Ahsun Murad of Optimal Satcom. The Pulsar satellites flew Oct. 20 on SpaceX’s Bandwagon-5 rideshare, and Xona has said beta service begins in early 2027. The company closed a $250 million Series D two days after launch.
“Worse to have bad location than no location”
Manning said the problem is already showing up in drones built by the hundreds of thousands. Drone companies on the military side “are cutting the cable on the GPS chip because they don’t trust it,” he said. “It’s actually worse to have bad location than no location.” Jamming can be worked around with inertial sensors, but bad location “means you’re going to hit your own troops.”
Those builders don’t have access to M-code or other secure signals, Manning said, while faking GPS signals takes about as much skill as “typing the Google.”
The China problem
Commercial users trying to make positioning more resilient mostly move to multi-constellation receivers, Manning said, and the newest constellation beyond GPS is China’s. U.S. industries from critical infrastructure timing to agriculture to logistics now integrate Chinese signals alongside GPS, “a vulnerability that has been ingrained into pretty much every single aspect of U.S. critical infrastructure,” he said.
Receiver makers can’t simply drop those signals and stay competitive globally, he acknowledged. “But right now relying on Chinese, Russian, et cetera, signals to get resilience does not put the U.S., I don’t think, in a very strong position.”
What’s coming for GPS
Col. Jon Strizzi, director of Space Systems Command’s Space Systems Integration Office, gave the Space Force’s GPS update. He said 14 GPS IIIF satellites, the next block, are on contract, with five moving through assembly, integration and test and first deliveries expected in mid-2027.
The panel also included Jeff Janicik, founder and chairman of Innoflight; Monali Jain, founder and CEO of AutonomousLabs.Space; and Sumant Sharma, co-founder and CEO of EraDrive.
Xona’s pitch is that commercial signals from low Earth orbit, roughly 20 times closer to Earth than GPS, can add the precision, power and protection that today’s receivers lack while plugging into the billions of GPS devices already in use.
About the Author
A storyteller at heart, Nick David covers space policy, satellite markets, defense, and the technologies reshaping how humanity operates beyond Earth. With a background in creative direction, brand strategy, and editorial storytelling, he brings a modern lens to complex subjects and a relentless curiosity about what comes next.
