The Global Positioning System recently celebrated its 20th anniversary. The US Air Force program has come a long way and is looking forward to many more years of technology and development.
On December 10, the United States Air Force celebrated the twentieth year of GPS systems in orbit around the earth, marking two decades of offering critical mapping data for government, commercial and personal use.
The Global Positioning System owes its success to Space Vehicle Number (SVN) 23, launched by Boeing (then the Rockwell Corporation), on November 26, 1990. The satellite was operational for navigation and timing two years later. Though it was expected to last just 7.5 years, with some repairs, it is now slated to live well into its 21st.
Originally, the satellite, Boeing’s GPS Block IIA-10, appeared to be a failure. In just its first year, the satellite’s ability to keep its solar arrays directed toward the sun appeared to be damaged and required the Air Force’s 2nd Space Operational Squadron to manually point the arrays toward the sun for fourteen years. The machinery appeared to fix itself three years later. To date, the satellite maintains one of the best atomic clocks of the GPS fleet.
Global Positioning Systems remain under the purview of the US Air Force, and work with companies like Boeing to maintain the program, which have become critical to American infrastructure for government, private businesses and the general public. There are now 31 satellites in the GPS constellation of varying models.
In the two decades since its original launch, the Global Positioning System has been used for both military and civilian uses, and the GPS system continues to improve. Boeing launched the first of its twelve IIF satellites in August of 2010, and it is the most advanced Global Positioning System in history.
As Global Positioning Systems become more advanced, programs in space, home control and civilian uses will become nearly perfectly synchronized. With these technological improvements, satellites can utilize GPS to become the standard of timing, positioning and navigation.
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