I tried not to write about this today, but it was basically this or the Palm Pre Release date (covered here yesterday).
There is this really poorly research article on the UK news site The Guardian (Linked above) claiming that the Global Positioning System is about to fall out of the sky and that people depending on their GPS navigation systems to get them home every night will suddenly be told to drive off a cliff the nearest high cliff to their doom.
This is “most likely” not the case.
Disclosure: I am not an GPS an expert and have no contact with the US Air Force in regards to this matter. The following is based on my understanding of the GPS system, and having used GPS receivers for various reasons for many years now.
The series of satellites that relay signals to the earth that your GPS unit uses to interpret your location are fully redundant of each other. There is no such thing as a “key” satellite that controls the rest of them. So if any one Satellite were to fail or more horribly fall into your back yard, your receiver would just find and use the next closest satellite for information.
On a clear day I find my GPS units lock onto 11 or more satellites, and although more data is better, for general navigation three satellites are all that is needed.
Now, if there were some sort of catastrophic failure of say ten or more GPS satellites at once, yes your GPS receiver would not function until you came to an area where it could lock onto at least three satellites.
But… while it’s not functioning, it is not going to give you bad information. It is not going to tell you to turn left into the side of a mountain, unless of course you told it that iswhere you wanted to go. Your GPS receiver is not going to give you bad information just because it can’t get a signal. It will just tell you nothing, and *gasp* *horror* you will have to figure out where to turn all on your own. Or perhaps with the help of a map and or the person in the seat next to you.
Now the Guardian article also says that this could jeopardize military missions. I don’t think so. Now I am not 100% sure on this, so don’t quote me without doing your own research to back up this statement (don’t be like the guardian) but I believe the US Military uses another more accurate and newer satellite positioning system, that either works separately from or augments the existing GPS system. This information comes from recalled casual conversation with some of my relatives who are active in various branches of the government and armed services. I cannot immediately find any reference to such a system to link you to. If you know what I am talking about and have a link with further information post it in the comments section below. I will update my article accordingly if I find accurate information.
But regardless, this is a shameless headline grab by the Guardian. I am sure we need to replace a satalite or two for the system to be maintained, such is the way of things. But to imply that the whole system is about to collapse is just shotty journalism, in my opinion.
…
Garmin nüvi 1490T 5-Inch Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator with Integrated Traffic Receiver
