The government has announced £155 million to boost resilience in critical services.
Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) services are critical to modern society - for example, satellite navigation services which help us get from A to B or timing signals.
Research shows that a 24-hour outage of satellite navigation services could cost the UK economy £1.4 billion.
PNT services could be jammed or spoofed by hostile actors and they can also be impacted by natural events like solar flares from the sun.
£71 million will be spent to begin work on a UK National Enhanced Long-Range Navigation (eLoran) programme, providing PNT across land, air and sea that is independent of signals from satellites, and hard to jam or spoof.
£68 million will be used for further development of the National Timing Centre (NTC) programme. This is being delivered by the National Physical Laboratory, to develop the UK’s first nationally-distributed time infrastructure.
£13 million is being set aside for work on a UK Global Navigation Satellite Systems interference monitoring programme and there is £3 million for the Space Based Time Transfer R&D programme.
Science Minister Lord Vallance said: "Having resilient and enduring access to Position, Navigation and Timing Services is a critical part of life in today’s world, and a major plank in the UK’s national security. So many of the things we take for granted every day, from using our phones to planning a journey, simply couldn’t happen without it.
"The UK is a leader in this field, but in an uncertain world we cannot be complacent. The funding we are announcing today will ultimately help protect Britain from the risks posed to PNT, from both accidental outages and hostile acts, safeguarding everyone’s wealth and wellbeing."
David Henderson, Chief Geospatial Officer, Ordnance Survey, said: "A resilient PNT infrastructure is vital for the success and security of our economy and society.
"The government’s focus and investment in our national positioning infrastructure is very welcome. This clear direction will help develop our national capabilities, supporting accurate, secure, and resilient positioning services."
