What is GPS ?

integrating ideas from several predecessors, including a number of classified engineering design studies from the 1960s.

GPS was created and realized by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and was originally run with 24 satellites.

It became fully operational in 1995

Advances in technology and new demands on the existing system have now led to efforts to modernize the GPS system and implement the next generation of GPS III satellites and Next Generation Operational Control System (OCX).[

Announcements from Vice President Al Gore and the White House in 1998 initiated these changes. In 2000, the U.S. Congress authorized the modernization effort, GPS III.

In addition to GPS, other systems are in use or under development.

The Russian Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS) was developed contemporaneously with GPS, but suffered from incomplete coverage of the globe until the mid-2000s.

There are also the planned European Union Galileo positioning system, India's Indian Regional Navigational Satellite System and Chinese Compass navigation system

On June 26, 1993 the U.S. Air Force launched the 24th Navstar satellite into orbit, completing a network of 24 satellites known as the Global Positioning System, or GPS.

With a GPS receiver that costs less than a few hundred dollars you can instantly learn your location on the planet--your latitude, longitude, and even altitude--to within a few hundred feet.

This incredible new technology was made possible by a combination of scientific and engineering advances, particularly development of the world's most accurate timepieces: atomic clocks that are precise to within a billionth of a second.

The clocks were created by physicists seeking answers to questions about the nature of the universe, with no conception that their technology would some day lead to a global system of navigation.

Today, GPS is saving lives, helping society in countless other ways, and generating 100,000 jobs in a multi-billion-dollar industry

Once your GPS unit realizes it is traveling faster than 1200mph (1900kmph) at an altitude higher than 60,000ft (18,000m), it will automatically shut itself down in fear that it is being used in an intercontinental ballistic missile-like application

The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Air Force

GPS signals are being spoofed in some areas of Moscow: “the fake signal, which seems to center on the Kremlin, relocates anyone nearby to Vnukovo Airport, 32 km away.

A Korean airlines accidentally strayed into Soviet Airspace, leading to the plane being shot down. To prevent such a tragedy, U.S. President Ronald Reagan declassified a critical military tech and that is how we got GPS for civilian use.

It is a global navigation satellite system that provides geolocation and time information to a GPS receiver anywhere on or near the Earth where there is an unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites. Obstacles such as mountains and buildings block the relatively weak GPS signals

In 2013, Google bought the GPS app “Waze” which resulted in each of the 100 employees receiving an average of $1.2 million.

Australia has moved so far since GPS coordinates were last updated in 1994 that they now need to shift all coordinates by 1.8 meters to be accurate enough for automated vehicles

The U.S. provides GPS service worldwide for free, while U.S. taxpayers pay $2 million dollars a day to keep it operating

The GPS does not require the user to transmit any data, and it operates independently of any telephonic or internet reception, though these technologies can enhance the usefulness of the GPS positioning information

A man invented shoes called “No Place Like Home” shoes that have a built-in GPS which help guide you home by clicking your heels together three time

The European Space Agency and EU are currently deploying an alternative to GPS, called “Galileo”. As well as being accurate to 1 meter, it will also have a “Search and Rescue Service”, where distress signals can be picked up from anywhere on Earth. The full system will be completed by 201

Most people who have cars with built-in GPS use their phones for direction