Satellite Glitch Rekindles GPS Concerns

coondoggie writes "News today that the Air Force is investigating signal problems with its latest Global Positioning System satellite is likely to rekindle the flames of a congressional report last month that said the current GPS coverage may not be so ubiquitous in the future. The Air Force stated that routine early orbit checkout procedures determined that the signals from the Lockheed-built GPS IIR-2 (M), which was launched in March, were inconsistent with the performance of other GPS IIR-M satellites. The Air Force said it has identified several parameters in the GPS IIR-20 (M)'s navigation message that can be corrected to bring the satellite into compliance with current GPS Performance Standards."

Comments

Re:Soloution?

[PeterBrett]

Soloution? Pour more money into NASA!

Um, the GPS constellation belongs to the USAF.

Re:Followup on the story

[morgan_greywolf]

Pretty much. Of course, any current problems with GPS are likely to be fixed once GPS III is up and running. It will combine land-based positioners with satellites that have 500 times the transmitter power. Of course, that 'not so ubiquitous' factor is still there as GPS III will allow the U.S. military to shut down GPS to selected geographic areas at will to all but sanctioned receivers. ;)

Re:GPS will be just fine

[CosmicRabbit]

Well, from TFA the problem seems to be the new L5 frequency, which is "interfering with other signals from the satellite and reducing their accuracy"
This is a little more serious than just some glitches in the software. It's a basic design problem.