The US military forces launched the first GPS satellite in 1978. More than thirty other satellites have been launched ever since for military, aviation and individual usage worldwide. In the history of the Global Positioning System, more than just one GPS satellite has been lost during launches or afterwards. Some orbiting devices were taken out of service, others were replaced, but but no effort was spared for making GPS usage top quality. A GPS receiver decodes the signal sent by the satellite and gives the exact location based on latitude, longitude and altitude.
Science has made such progress that GPS satellite navigation is now incorporated in the design of smartphones. People depend more and more on GPS orientation and problems may appear if replacements do not come for the orbiting satellites that will expire in a few years. For the moment, there are funding and management issues that seem to act against the proper reconditioning of the GPS applications. The US Air Force is in charge of the entire GPS satellite structure, but according to a recent May 2009 report, there are economic difficulties to be overcome.
At present there are some 31 satellites in service and since only four are necessary to get a fix on the position, the average user will not feel a change if some of the orbiting devices fail to work. Sometimes information may get redundant as the same GPS receiver can get simultaneous data from six or eight satellites, which is more than necessary. But in the eventuality of no real time positioning with the GPS satellite structures, we’d have to start using maps all over again. The transportation systems, the maritime and military forces would suffer most without GPS satellite reconditioning.
In order to offer an alternative to the GPS satellite predominance, European states prepare to launch an independent satellite navigation system in 2010. There are other countries that have individual satellite navigation and here we can count India, China or Russia. No matter how things are sorted out in terms of policy, implementation and administration at the global level, the average user will not be affected by the different modifications in the way the GPS satellite communication works. More and more people will in fact start using GPS devices for increased efficiency of navigation.
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When the author isn’t being tracked, she has a collection of interests in psychic readings, Seattle HCG diet, and BMW Z4 windscreen windblocker wind deflector.
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