News | Oct. 25, 2024

Celebrating 20 Years of Joint Navigation Warfare Center's Service to National Defense

By Bridget Bonnette

The Joint Navigation Warfare Center celebrated its 20th anniversary with a ceremony that brought together community leaders, congressional leaders, and coalition partners, here, Oct. 23, 2024.

On Oct. 1, 2004, JNWC was established under the office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Networks Information & Integration. Since then, JNWC has been at the forefront of delivering exceptional navigation warfare capabilities to the Department of Defense, interagency, and coalition partners.

Over the past 20 years, JNWC has made significant strides in advancing navigation warfare capabilities. Their operational support includes subject matter expertise via 24/7 reach back and deployable teams, which offer guidance in planning and conducting navigation warfare operations across various domains.

Lt. Gen. Douglas A. Schiess, U.S. Space Forces – Space Commander and Combined Joint Force Space Component Commander, gave remarks at the event, highlighting the critical role that JNWC plays in national defense.

“Today, JNWC is the Joint Force lead in navigation warfare, significantly impacting our warfighters as the DoD’s center of excellence,” said Schiess. “GPS continues to be foundational for America’s military and its society, with thousands of military systems depending on navigation satellites to move and communicate. America’s way of war is predicated on our ability to synchronize operations across time, space, and purpose to achieve objectives.”

JNWC's mission is to ensure positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) superiority, integrating navigation warfare across the DoD and providing operational support to the warfighter. JNWC also conducts PNT operational field assessments to evaluate navigation warfare operational capabilities, prioritize navigation warfare knowledge gaps based on warfighter requirements, and determine mitigations to navigation warfare operational vulnerabilities.

The ceremony served as a way to mark the evolution of JNWC over the past two decades, and to thank all those who have served within the center and their families.

“Today we celebrate all of your accomplishments over these last 20+ years,” said Mr. Robert Hoffman, JNWC Director.  “Today we take a moment to pause and celebrate all that our organization has contributed to our national security over the years. The fact is, JNWC has played a key role in nearly every system in use by the Joint Force today. Our legacy JNWC teammates efforts have enabled our warfighters to maintain our PNT superiority over these many years. Today’s members of Team-JNWC will ensure America and her allies maintain our superiority now and into the future.”

In attendance at the event were past JNWC leaders including first-ever JNWC Director, Linda Surran, who expressed her gratitude and pride for the organization.

“I am honored to be here to celebrate with you the 20th anniversary of the JNWC,” said Surran. “The JNWC has a proud legacy from a small joint test call Joint GPS Combat Effectiveness or JGPSCE, where an idea for a NAVWAR center grew and became a vision realized in the organization it has become today. I am proud to have been a part of JGPSCE and the JNWC so many years ago.”

JNWC remains committed to delivering exceptional navigation warfare capabilities that meet the evolving needs of their customers and will continue to invest in research and development, building on their legacy of innovation and excellence.

JNWC’s commitment to partnership shined through during their recent collaboration with the Australian Department of Defense to improve the resilience of GPS devices in contested environments. This joint, coalition effort aimed to test the performance of the Defense Advanced GPS Receiver (DAGR) under simulated jamming conditions, generating data to inform its warfighting effectiveness.

As one of five operational centers under Schiess’s role as the Combined Joint Force Space Component Commander, JNWC is critical to protecting, defending, delivering and connecting space enabled effects to the Joint Force, Coalition partners, and the Nation.