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Air Force warning: GPS can crash next year

Thanks in part to a lack of oversight, a government agency Wednesday warned that unless the U.S. Air Force is able to acquire new satellites soon, the Global Positioning Systen may crash by next year, wreaking havoc with the public and military operations.

According to a new report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), an overhaul of the 20-year-old system has been delayed until November, putting it three years behind schedule. The project is also over budget by $870 million from the original cost estimate of $729 million, for a total of approximately $1.6 billion.

“If the Air Force does not meet its schedule goals for development of GPS IIIA satellites, there will be an increased likelihood that in 2010, as old satellites begin to fail, the overall GPS constellation will fall below the number of satellites required to provide the level of GPS service that the U.S. government commits ,” the GAO stated in its report.

The problem is blamed in part on the fact that no one single authority is responsible for synchronizing all procurements and fielding related to GPS. In addition, funding has been diverted from ground programs to pay for problems in the space segment of the GPS program, according to the report.

The Air Force has also encountered “significant” technical problems that still threaten its delivery schedule, and has also struggled with a contractor, which was not named in the report.

The GAO said that the time period between the contract award and first launch for GPS IIIA was shorter than most other major space programs it reviewed.

“Though the contractor has had previous experience with GPS, it is likely that the knowledge base will need to be revitalized,” the GAO said. “The contractor is also being asked to develop a larger satellite bus to accommodate the future GPS increments and to increase the power of a new military signal by a factor of 10.”

The Department of Defense (DOD) develops and operates GPS, and an interdepartmental committee—co-chaired by DOD and the Department of Transportation—manages the US space-based positioning, navigation, and timing infrastructure, which includes GPS. The DOD also provides most of the funding for GPS. The Air Force is responsible for GPS acquisition, according to the report. “The Department of Defense continues to face cost overruns in the billions of dollars, schedule delays adding up to years, and performance shortfalls stemming from programs that began in the 1990s, and after that were poorly structured, managed and overseen,” said the GAO. “What sets GPS apart from those programs is that GPS had already been “done” before.”

However, the Air Force is not sitting by idly. It has taken steps to structure the new GPS IIIA program to prevent mistakes made on the IIF program. The agency also plans to invest more than $5.8 billion over the next five years in the GPS satellites and ground control segments.

Look out GBC if the Yanks catch up and get the satellite into orbit the knowledge could be dead

I suspect that report may have originated in the USA.

There is a european system called Galileo currently being commissioned which is complementary to the american system. Any breakdowns should have minimal effect, IMHO. There may also be other systems of which I am not aware.

I know that space is a big place but with all the different countries putting all these different satelites up there, How long will it be before we can't see the sun?

_________________
Grandad,

In the begining there was local knowledge on the land and guessing at sea but it was not good.
Man set to with quill and parchment and drew "Ye Map" and ye map was good. But local knowledge was better.
Sailors saw Ye Map and decided to make a Sea Map and they called it "Ye Chart" and Ye Chart was good.
Ye Map and Ye Chart were better than nothing but hand drawn and full of "Ye Cockups". Local knowledge was better.
Printing came along and Map and Chart could be copied again and again, the "cockups" were reduced bit by bit. But local knowledge was better.
Measuring came into the map and the chart and navigation got better and better on Land and Sea. But still local knowledge was better.
Accurate bombing of the opposition made UK and Germany invent Radio Direction Finding. But on the ground local knowledge was still better.
Marconi in Europe and Loran in the US improved RDF and at sea it was reasonably good, but hills and buildings made it not good on land. Local knowledge was better at sea and on the land.
Man put new stars in the sky and called it GPS, it was good but local knowledge was better.
Man mixed up GPS and Maps and charts and it was good. Local knowledge was better.
Charts and maps and GPS mixed up man and made him drive on non-existant roads, told him to turn left and drive his car up the river. It directed him the wrong way on one way streets and made him wedge his truck on tight bends. Local knowledge was better.
The stars man put in the sky started to fall and he was not ready to put all new shiny stars up instead of the old dull ones.
Mans new stars from Europe called Galileo will not link with the old stars built by American Defence Department.
Europe and the US build the stars, Japan builds the special Map and Chart boxes.
And so it came to pass that local KNOWLEDGE was better in the end.

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Chris The Fish

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gdlyi5mc ... re=related

The Knowledge will never be dead Skippy, you'll never replace what I know with a plug in box on your windscreen, even one that actually works in Central London.

No satellite = No PH in London.

Bring it on.

Nice one, Chris. I enjoyed that.

I would correct you on one point, if I may: The European Galileo system is specifically designed to work in the same way, with the same frequencies and software, as the american GPS system so that existing equipment continues to function regardless of which satellites it is using at any particular moment.

Galileo may not help. . . . .

Quote from the BBC Website:

'Galileo will be a global network of 30 satellites providing precise timing and location information to users on the ground and in the air. Its development has already cost more than 1.5bn euros and it is likely to require at least a further 3.4bn to get it operational by the end of 2013. The investment makes Galileo the biggest space project initiated in Europe.'

Wouldnt worry too much though, im ure everything will be just fine

I'd actually forgotten that GPS is a military system that has been made available for civilian use so I don't think they'd let it fall into disrepair.

Did wonders for Queen though

CC

_________________
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

Magnifico

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Chris The Fish

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gdlyi5mc ... re=related

Good news....


Death to the McTomTom