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GPS Accuracy Could Start Dropping In 2010

Posted by timothy on from the how-to-blackmail-for-tax-dollars dept.

adamengst writes "A US Government Accountability Office report raises concerns about the Air Force's ability to modernize and maintain the constellation of satellites necessary to provide GPS services to military and civilian users. TidBITS looks at the situation and possible solutions."

8 of 210 comments (clear)

  1. How about cutting the dead wood? by mr_stinky_britches · · Score: 4, Insightful
    From TFA:

    The GAO's report draws attention to problems that the Air Force has had in working with contractors to build and launch GPS satellites within cost and schedule goals. Some of the problems stem from government acquisition methods that didn't provide for enough oversight, and added requirements that resulted in cost and schedule overruns.

    Sounds like a software/project management issue to me. I didn't finish reading the article, but I hope one of their proposed solutions was to fire the incompetent people who can't deliver on-time or within budget.

    just my .02c

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    1. Re:How about cutting the dead wood? by FireFlie · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Just your 1/50th of a cent?

  2. Just in time for Galileo by MichaelSmith · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Best not to rely entirely on one system anyway.

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  3. How much is actually going to be lost? by Chmcginn · · Score: 5, Insightful
    With one or two satellites below the 24 constellation, the accuracy isn't going to be impeded any noticeable amount. Any GPS reciever that can take DGPS signals might well not even notice.

    The real concern is a major solar event - if they're having a big issue replacing one every other year, imagine if a major solar storm took out a dozen at once.

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  4. Europe to the rescue! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Ah, and you all laughed when Europe started to launch Galileo sats. Haha!

  5. Re:This is like the Millenium Bug by quanticle · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why move to Europe? I mean, its not like they'll not be restricting the system so that it only works over Europe. Why not just buy a Galileo receiver (when they become available)?

    Also, isn't Galileo supposed to be backwards compatible with GPS?

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  6. Re:Surveyors are going to start having problems... by ptbarnett · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Doesn't matter.. you aren't going to get better than 10m accuracy without DGPS and 1m with it. Surveys have to be right to centimetres - no GPS can do that.

    Yes, they can. They just aren't consumer handheld GPS receivers:

    http://www.trimble.com/survey/GNSS-Surveying-Systems.aspx

    They don't give instant position: they accumulate data over a period of time and use that to derive the exact position, usually after correcting it with a comparable stream of data collected from a nearby known reference point.

    Under ideal situations the accuracy of GPS equipment can approach 5 millimeter[...]

  7. No by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 3, Insightful

    We laughed at the fact that Europe has NOT stated to launch Galileo sats. As of yet, the system is still operational and I can't find any data saying they've even launched a single sat. Last I can see they were supposed to in 2H 2008, but I can't find anything saying they did.

    The funny things about Galileo isn't that they are working on their own system. Makes good sense, especially since the US and EU apparently worked out their differences with it and the two systems will work together to give even better results. The funny thing is all the politicing and such going on that is keeping the project in vaporware status for a long time. By the original timeline, the system ought to be up now, and instead it isn't even starting.