LORAN Saved, but Money Questions Remain
February 8, 2008Everything old is eventually new again — that could be said of LORAN. Or perhaps, like clothing styles, proponents of LORAN just had to wait long enough, and it became fashionable again.
Or perhaps a metaphor using cinema pugilist Rocky Balboa — or even the actor that portrays him, Sylvester Stallone, for that matter — would be apt; just when you think LORAN is down for the count, it gets back up again. In fact, it has been given $34.5 million in President Bush's proposed federal budget for fiscal 2009, and made part of the provenance of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The U.S. Coast Guard, which has overseen the domestic LORAN program for years and years — and is part of DHS — would still administer the program.
The Long Range Aid to Navigation (LORAN) system (originally LRN for Loomis Radio Navigation, after it inventor, Alfred Lee Loomis) has been around for decades, with roots that go back to World War II and that era's naval warfare. Simply put, it is a terrestrial, radio-based navigation system that uses the time intervals between the reception of signals to triangulate a user's position. The venerable system has modern value: the greater capabilities of the new enhanced Loran (eLoran) make it a much-needed independent, redundant backup to GPS, and one less susceptible to interference than GPS is. Read Sally Basker's and Len Jacobson's editorials on this topic on the GPS World Website.
It could be said to have fallen out of favor in recent years, with the advent of GPS and related satellite navigation technologies, and the more accurate positioning that satellite technologies provide. Even the Coast Guard has looked in recent years to shed LORAN, or at least remove the responsibility for funding it from its own dedicated budget.
Now it looks as if LORAN will remain as a complementary system and backup to GPS, something its proponents have suggested for some years now. Language in the proposed federal budget stated that the administration of the LORAN-C program will migrate to the National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD) of the Department of Homeland Security in preparation for conversion of LORAN-C operations to eLORAN, as well.
Where's the Rest of the Money Coming From?
But despite that language and decrees from LORAN proponents that the system has been rescued from oblivion, that $34.5 million is essentially a stopgap measure.
"Today the U.S. Department of Homeland Security will begin implementing an independent national positioning, navigation and timing system that complements GPS in the event of an outage or disruption in service," the department stated Thursday.
"The enhanced LORAN, or eLORAN, system will be a land-based, independent system and will mitigate any safety, security, or economic effects of a GPS outage or disruption. GPS is a satellite-based system widely used for positioning, navigation, and timing. The eLORAN system will be an enhanced and modernized version of LORAN-C, long used by mariners and aviators and originally developed for civil marine use in coastal areas," the DHS statement continued.
"In addition to providing backup coverage, the signal strength and penetration capability of eLORAN will provide support to first responders and other operators in environments that GPS cannot support, such as under heavy foliage, in some underground areas, and in dense high-rise structures. The system will use modernized transmitting stations and an upgraded network."
That's all well and good, but the funding for eLORAN going forward is still an open question; $34.5 million hardly covers the annual operating costs of the system as it exists today. As the Coast Guard budget position statement issued this week puts it, that fiscal 2009 budget request "reflects transfer of LORAN-C operations to NPPD, however the Coast Guard will continue operation of the system in 2009 on a reimbursable basis."
The actual upgrade from LORAN-C to a full-fledged eLORAN system costs considerably more. It involves adding another data channel to the LORAN system as well as enhanced infrastructure, such as high-powered transmitters and new timing equipment at LORAN stations; there are 24 scattered across the United States and its territories.
While that upgrade has begun, the eLORAN upgrade is far from complete — only 19 of the U.S. LORAN stations have been upgraded so far, for one thing — and its funding has been in limbo, as no new money has been allocated in the federal budget for the Coast Guard's upgrade plan since fiscal 2006. But completing the eLORAN upgrade could cost as much as an additional $400 million, according to Coast Guard figures.
Where DHS will come up with that money remains to be seen.
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