The Global Positioning System (GPS) essential to U.S. national security has become a popular tool for public services worldwide providing navigation, position and timing data.
Alarming news is that the Air Force responsible for GPS is uncertain about acquiring new satellites to avoid interruptions of GPS services. The Global Positioning System will partly lose its capability in 2010 if the Air Force does not manage to develop GPS IIIA satellites in time as far as old satellites begin to fail. However, there are certain measures that can be taken to minimize the impact on GPS users.
In recent years, the Air Force faced technical problems still threatening the system accuracy. Besides, stability of GPS has been hampered because of the frequent turnover in program managers and the lack of a single authority for space programs.
