GPS Navigation May Fail Next Year
A report stemming from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) warns that the nation's Global Positioning System (GPS) may begin to fail next year due to a lack of funding and mismanagement by the United States Air Force.
Although the Air Force is currently working on upgrading the current twenty-year-old system, the firm believes that its efforts to acquire new satellites may be too late to maintain the current GPS system without interruption. This is certainly not good news for millions of consumers and business that depend on GPS navigation on a day to day basis; the military would be just as affected if gaps were to occur, and could pose a problem with national security.
The firm points to a major problem with the internal management within the Air Force, claiming that there's no single point of authority for space programs, and that the frequent turnover in program managers have "hampered" resource allocation and funding stability for the GPS upgrade program. "If the Air Force does not meet its schedule goals for development of GPS IIIA satellites, there will be an increased likelihood that in 2010, as old satellites begin to fail, the overall GPS constellation will fall below the number of satellites required to provide the level of GPS service that the U.S. government commits to," said the firm.
As stated in the 15-page report, the Air Force has struggled to build successful GPS satellites on schedule and within the budget, encountering "significant" technical problems as well as dealing with a different contractor. Both roadblocks have thus delayed the launch of a new, replacement next-generation GPS satellite--scheduled to hit the outer atmosphere by November 2009--by almost three years. The current update program for the entire GPS constellation has already overshot its original budget limit by about $879 million.
For now, the current GPS constellation consists of 31 working satellites, many of which are four years older than their original life expectancy (only 3 satellites are needed to provide an accurate fix). The firm said that that there's a one in five chance that the constellation will drop below the minimum 24 satellites needed to cover the globe at various times between 2011 and 2012 (the same year aliens will invade the earth, the world will end, and the Internet will come to a screeching halt).
Meanwhile, as the American government struggles to keep its GPS system functional, other networks may take advantage of the situation. The Glonass Russian satellite system is the second largest GPS constellation, consisting of 19 operational satellites. China plans to launch an operational GPS system by 2011, and Europe's Galileo network, designed to rival the American GPS network, is scheduled to launch next year.
Although the US GPS system is virtually free to all American consumers and businesses (outside 3rd party applications, that is), the government plans to deposit a whopping $5.8 billion into the upgrade process over the next 5 years, addressing the individual satellites and ground control segments. However, despite the recent shortcomings in launching the first next-gen satellite, many GPS firms are naturally staying positive, reporting that there's nothing to worry about.
"We would agree with the notion that the GAO is admonishing the various government entities to work together so that... GPS service remains uninterrupted," Ted Gartner, a spokesman for Garmin, said in a statement. "There's no reason to fear that there will be a significant outage or service interruption."
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Right now would probably be a good day to sell shares in TomTom
How long do these things last. As far as I knew I was among the very first to use GPS which was in the very early 1990's doing land surveying - Evidently the military or government has other uses for it long before we did??
Evidently the military or government has other uses for it long before we did??
Well DUH!!! Pretty much all major consumer tech was first used by military before consumers. GPS was something the military came up with by the way. Just like the internet, and many other things.
...and buy paper maps and a compass.
they just need a bailout!
Well that's okay, the government can just pass a bailout for...oh wait...
This is a story I've seen on many news sites and it is 100% politically driven. There are backup satellites and redundancies for every aspect of the GPS system so a systemic failure is somewhere between highly unlikely and impossible. Now that the Shuttle program is winding down NASA and other space agencies will have to do what they can to milk every last dollar from the general public, including planting scare stories like this one.
Not going to happen, and the article is wrong wrong wrong.
There are 24 sats minimum, only 21 are active with a fixed path, with at least 3 spares. New satellites are launched all the time.
If you think for a second the military are going to let this go you are crazy. The operations in Iraq and Afganistan are completely reliant on these satellites and a GPS failure would be result in a complete disarray in troop deployment.
Typical media scare tactics
axekick: Most of the electronics in the GPS system are from the early 80's and if I remember right our current satellite GPS went online in 1987. Before that the military used a land radio version of GPS called TADIL. The GPS satellites are geosynchronous and will continue to function in some capacity for many decades to come, but as their ability to hold a stationary position degrades they will be replaced by the newer GPS system that should be up in the next decade.
tenor77: There are 26 base satellites that complete the global grid. The number of backup satellites is classified, but it is enough. If the GPS system were completely erased it wouldn't impact military operations because all of our weapons guidance system use TADIL as an error correction and redundant compliment to GPS. But you are right that is not going down anyway.
i would agree that wherever or whoever wrote this article it is not a fail but a political type article.
@ hajila: The initial GPS program was 24 satellites with 21 active 3 reserve. You're right that no one outside of the DOD knows how many spares there are beyond this but there are only 21 active satellites.
As far as the military, it's not just weapons but troops as well. They use GPS to report their position. The way that the army operates is very reliant on GPS. Talk to any Iraq vet. Next to his rifle his GPS is his best friend.
corrected.
...and buy paper maps and a compass.
Yes I am aware. At that time we had to contact the United States Naval Observatory to receive the coordinates we had tracked from the satellites.
If by "Pretty much all major consumer tech was first used by military" you mean Most major consumer tech was first used by the military I would challenge that assertion.
This says there's a 20% chance that we will have less than 24 active satellites in 3 years time. That doesn't mean GPS will cease to work entirely. This just means some spots on the globe may experience reduced accuracy due to a lack of visible satellites. The point of this article is that the Air Force is not taking the proper steps to ensure they are replaced as fast as they might start dying.
TomToms and cell phones aside, most applications that really need to know where they are have multiple backups, and the world won't stop running just because GPS is a little less accurate. Commercial planes, for example, primarily use INS (inertial navigation), GPS is a backup. They also have plenty of navigation radios like VOR, TACAN, DME, etc...
I was gonna mention TACAN, hellwig beat me to it. I used to work on those receivers back in my Navy days. I didn't think it was still in use though. I feel sorry for the tech strapped to that test equipment in this day and age!
What I'm wondering is, why is the US government paying for GPS that's beneficial to the rest of the world?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but rest of the world should pay the US a fee for being allowed to use their GPS.
like the internet? ;-)
@ eddieroolz
That's why other nations are launching their OWN networks, because they don't want to rely on US' network in case there are 'relationship problems' down the road. Plus, there are varying degrees of accuracy. The US government utilizes the TADIL (said above) plus satellite, which gives them the most accurate readings.
@ eddieroolzThat's why other nations are launching their OWN networks, because they don't want to rely on US' network in case there are 'relationship problems' down the road. Plus, there are varying degrees of accuracy. The US government utilizes the TADIL (said above) plus satellite, which gives them the most accurate readings.
Thanks for the clarification, andet
Don't fear, Obama is here.
I don't see any reason to be concerned. We've just launched another GPS satellite a couple of months ago.
Dammit, Kevin. God fucking dammit.
Funny, GPS network needs 24 sats to function...don't we have ~31-33 in orbit?
Doesn't sound close to failure to me.
What I'm wondering is, why is the US government paying for GPS that's beneficial to the rest of the world?Correct me if I'm wrong, but rest of the world should pay the US a fee for being allowed to use their GPS.
Hmmmm... maybe the US will let their GPS system fall apart so others will put one up in its place (say the EU or China or both). That way they will be paying for it.
How can GPS be free? Wait, we paid for it with our money! SOCIALISM!!!
It has been a long time policy to make other nations dependent on us technology so that uncle sam has control. Well, other nations are moving away from this. Other GPS systems, non us operating systems for computers, non us chips, non us routers, etc. It is all happening.
Great! US will be forced to pull out troops of Afghanistan and Iraq.
How long do these things last. As far as I knew I was among the very first to use GPS which was in the very early 1990's doing land surveying - Evidently the military or government has other uses for it long before we did??
A decade at most I think. You can read about that in Internet.
SA, or selective availability is not in the current generation of satellites. As a result the United States cannot stop anyone from using GPS. It's a low watt radio transmission. Other than turning it off completely how do you think the US can control who uses those radio signals?
Oh yeah they can't.
they just need a bailout!
This is the Air Force youre talking about here. Our new president will be destroying their budget and there will be no money to fix the GPS system.
i would agree that wherever or whoever wrote this article it is not a fail but a political type article.
The article is written that way because they want more funding. That's it. It's no secret.
Another way of trying to get more funding. With the monies already spent, we could have 4 times as many satellites.