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The aviation GPS/ADS-B failure right now is interesting. So far only affects some aircraft, which suggest it's not an over-the-air jamming issue. Sounds like a client side software/configuration problem, but hard to be definitive.
ADS-B doesn't itself, as far as I know, have any over-the-air software update capability, but the avionics system likely does have the ability to update the package via some other channel. So did some avionics vendor recently push out an update?
ADS-B is a protocol where aircraft periodically broadcast their GPS-derived location. It's an updated alternative (soon to be mandatory) to older transponders that respond to radar "pings". Some, but not all, aircraft started having trouble with it this evening.
So this system depends on:
- the hardware and software in the aircraft
- the ADS-B broadcast frequencies
- GPS reception
Both the ADS-B frequencies and the GPS frequency could be maliciously jammed or interfered with, but that would be a fairly local effect, not nationwide.
- the hardware and software in the aircraft
- the ADS-B broadcast frequencies
- GPS reception
Both the ADS-B frequencies and the GPS frequency could be maliciously jammed or interfered with, but that would be a fairly local effect, not nationwide.
...but that doesn't seem to be what's happening here; it's just some aircraft, and it's happening across the country (maybe elsewhere too). So that suggests either some kind of global solar/atmospheric interference or (I think more likely) a software issue.
