GPS Is Operational

Roger Easton (1921–2014)

With the launch of the first global positioning system (GPS) in 1978, the world
was on its way to eliminating disorientation. Although the original goal was to
provide radio location and navigation for US military planes and ships, today’s
GPS receivers are the size of a small coin and provide location information not
just for government vehicles, but for civilian vehicles, pedestrians, and even
inanimate objects such as buildings.
Each GPS satellite contains an atomic clock and electronics that beam the
satellite’s identifier and its exact time down to the planet 20,000 kilometers
below. The signals travel at the speed of light, meaning they take roughly
0.06 seconds to reach the surface. Each receiver has an almanac that allows it
to calculate each satellite’s exact position based on the current time. Because
the receiver also has an accurate clock, it can subtract the time that it gets
from each satellite from the current time and determine the distance to each
satellite. Knowing these distances, along with the satellites’ actual positions,
allows the receiver to calculate its own position. Although the first test satellite
was launched in 1978, it wasn’t until 1990 that sufficient production satellites
were in orbit that the terrestrial GPS receivers could function reliably.
The idea of using radio waves for navigation dates back to World War II, when
the Allies developed increasingly sophisticated systems to help bombers reach
their targets. The satellite-based system was designed in the 1960s as a
navigation and targeting system by Roger L. Easton, a scientist at the Naval
Research Laboratory. It was only after the 1983 intentional downing of Korean
Air Lines flight 007, which had unwittingly strayed into the Soviet Union’s
airspace, that President Reagan decided to make GPS freely available to the
international community. Even then, GPS satellites were designed to transmit
two signals: an unencrypted, less-accurate civilian signal designed for general
use, and a more accurate encrypted signal intended for the US military. The
two classes of service were called selective availability. Unexpectedly, radio-
navigation use soon became dominated by civilians. In May 2000, President
Bill Clinton ended the general use of selective availability, clearing the way for
GPS’s growing use as a consumer navigation system.
SEE ALSO First Wireless Network (1971)
Block II are the second generation of satellites that make up the Navstar Global
Positioning System, known as GPS. Built by Rockwell International, they were
the first fully operational GPS satellites.