Galileo Holds the True Position While the Spoofer Lies

On the afternoon of 16 September, for two hours, five Galileo satellites over Europe transmitted an encrypted signal for the first time. Receivers at ESA's laboratory in the Netherlands and at Andøya in Norway used it to calculate a position. Europe's space agencies call it the first civil satellite position authenticated through both the navigation data and the ranging signal.

In plain words, what that means. A satellite position depends on two things: the message the satellite sends (where it is, what time it is) and the signal the receiver measures the distance with. Since 2025, Galileo's OSNMA service has let receivers check that the message is genuine. But the signal itself could still be faked, and that is how spoofing works: a transmitter copies the predictable signal and pushes a false position onto the receiver. The new Signal Authentication Service (SAS) protects the signal as well.

The test that matters. Much of the demonstration ran during Jammertest at Andøya, where controlled jamming and spoofing is done with real signals over the air. In the published results, an ordinary commercial receiver was pulled to false positions by the spoofer. The SAS-enabled receiver kept the true one.

What it is not, yet. It was a two-hour test with five satellites. Validation and accreditation run through 2027 before the service is declared operational. It will be free and worldwide. It does not stop jamming, which simply drowns the signal. It lets a receiver know when it is being lied to, which is the more dangerous problem.

Why this is in an AI newsletter. Almost every AI tool on a ship assumes the position is true: voyage optimisation, emissions reporting, collision-avoidance support, route compliance, AIS-based risk screening. Every one of them inherits a spoofed position without noticing. The practical question for your next newbuild or bridge refit is simple, and worth asking now: will the GNSS receivers support Galileo OSNMA and the E6 signal, and will the bridge show the crew when a position is not authenticated? A warning buried in a log file is no use at 0300 in the Gulf. [ESA · EUSPA · Splash247]

This story is part of the Maritime AI Digest of 20 September 2026.