A while back, I wrote that building an upgrade to GNSS is really a three-body problem: satellites, receivers, and test equipment, three communities that only work when all three move together. Over the past few years, we’ve worked on building an entirely new signal that upgrades GNSS, works in existing devices, and doesn’t interfere with the signals of today.

Just a few weeks ago, Pulsar-0 completed its first year in orbit, proving this feat on-orbit. We ran more than 350 transmission passes across four continents, pulled down 22 terabytes of observation data, pushed four software updates to the satellite itself, and watched a dozen-plus commercial receivers track our signals everywhere from Finland to Australia. 

Now, it’s time to unveil the work we’ve been doing to fortify the other systems around it – that is, the community.

Today, we’re making it easier for equipment manufacturers and developers to take advantage of what next-era navigation can offer with Pulsar Verified, our ecosystem partnership program that validates receivers against successful integration of Pulsar signals, tested by the same team that created them.

What is Pulsar Verified?

GNSS took over the world from the ground up, and has been evolved and expanded ever since by the collection of receiver and chipset manufacturers that have shrunk the size, reduced the cost, and increased performance to make GNSS the most widely used signal from space today. Along the way, those companies have built a strong, defensible business, with insights into what will work in the field and the features users are looking for most. 

In the process of making progress in our signal and the satellites that will broadcast them, we’ve also been advancing the ecosystem around it. We’ve partnered with the largest commercial manufacturers of GNSS chipsets to accelerate the transition to LEO navigation within the trusted channels that people already get GNSS equipment from today. 

Pulsar Verified gives device manufacturers, chipset integrators, and test equipment developers a way to put their hardware through a technical verification process and confirm it can receive and operate with Pulsar signals. At the same time, it makes it easier than ever for people building the next era of applications in physical AI and emerging technology to have confidence that they’ll be able to leverage the best positioning available to them as Pulsar’s constellation scales.

No one builds this alone

Our job is to not just broadcast a strong, precise, and authenticated signal, but also to make it easy to build with so everyone can benefit from it. Nobody builds world-changing infrastructure alone. We can park the strongest, most secure navigation signal in history over your head and it does nothing until a receiver maker integrates it and a customer trusts the hardware won’t fail them.

Launching Pulsar Verified as we begin to scale the deployment of our production constellation gives customers the ability to build for the service we’ll offer tomorrow, today. We’ve already seen connected fleet operators choose Pulsar-compatible chipsets in their hardware, a decision that offers optionality in expanding capabilities. As our constellation grows, so does our capability. Early decisions to build for Pulsar offers compounding advantages, future-proofs operations, and ultimately avoids costly hardware swaps down the line.

The trust we’ve built is already taking shape across the ecosystem, including with some of the world’s most important positioning and navigation companies. Trimble, for instance, is among the flagship partners joining the inaugural Pulsar Verified cohort bringing devices launched as early as 2018 to Pulsar capability. Septentrio (part of Hexagon), a high performance navigation leader who recently joined forces with Xona amidst our Series C fundraise, is actively working to integrate Pulsar into their full lineup of next-generation devices. The first wave also includes STMicroelectronics, Safran, StarNav, and Keysight. We are grateful to these companies for their early partnership, support in shaping Pulsar Verified, and placing their trust in Xona to introduce the next generation of PNT for the devices users around the world depend on.

More urgent than ever

Each passing week brings another reminder that trusted positioning and timing aren’t just a given. There was once a time when jamming and spoofing were confined to conflict zones, but now they’re affecting the commercial systems the world depends on every  day. From aviation and shipping to farming, autonomy, and financial systems. Speed to Pulsar adoption is key to resilient navigation. 

We’ve already seen what happens when those systems are put under pressure. In live-sky jamming tests in several countries, we watched as GNSS went dark but Pulsar held. Pulsar’s stronger signals can shrink a jammer's effective area by as much as 95%, proving that next-generation PNT can stay available even as legacy systems are disrupted. 

The next step is making that capability available to all devices and systems that need it. If you build receivers, chipsets, or complementary systems, this is the part where you come in. The Pulsar Verified program is open and ready to power your hardware with more resilient navigation, and we'd love to hear from you.