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.

Could it be related to this ? ;-))

[ls671]

Could it be related to this ? ;-))

http://idle.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/06/12/1713237

Hehe... ;-)

Followup on the story

[BadAnalogyGuy]

According to Air Force officials, the previous story was incorrect and the GPS are working properly. The person responsible for the false story has been apprehended and will face a military tribunal. These are not the droids you are looking for.

Move along.

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. ;)

GPS will be just fine

[DaveInAustin]

A brand new GPS satellite has some bugs they are finding during testing, therefore GPS won't work as well in the future? Stop with the panic folks. Have you ever tested new code with new features and found some bugs? That's why you do testing.

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.

Not as big of a deal as they're making it look

[Logical Zebra]

This is a problem with one satellite. ONE. The problem is with a brand new generation of satellite created by Lockheed Martin. Boeing is also producing new-generation GPS satellites. It stands to reason that the first of any new production run might have a glitch or two that didn't show up in developmental testing. (I'm not defending their shoddy testing procedures, mind you.) The remaining next-generation satellites haven't been completed yet, so it's probably safe to assume that these glitches will be fixed before launch.

The sky is not falling, and GPS will still be around.