But the data it provides, along with geographic information systems, can help a company keep tabs on its drivers. some resilience put in the systems before the bad thing happens," says Dana Goward, president of the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit. "My hope is we can get ahead of the bang and at least get. There's so much riding on GPS that a 2018 federal law sought to address one of the biggest underlying issues: the absence of a dedicated backup.Īny substantive damage or disruption to the system would be bad news.
It's also vital to the operations of the US military. In the US, GPS has about $1 billion a day in economic impact, according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Businesses and individuals can use the system's PNT - positioning, navigation and timing - capabilities for next to nothing. The highly precise signals from the Global Positioning System have worked their way into nearly every fabric of modern life, from recording bank transactions to synchronizing electrical grids to helping you find the nearest Starbucks. Just about everything, you see, relies on GPS. But satellites themselves face dangers.Īll those threats have lots of people worried. A satellite launched in June to the GPS constellation represents a tiny step in making the service more secure. By the time they reach Earth, they're vanishingly weak and easily overwhelmed. The signals used by aircraft, ships, farm tractors and your smartphone originate from satellites 12,000 miles (19,300 kilometers) out in space. GPS is all too susceptible to jamming and its trickster cousin, spoofing. It wasn't an isolated event, according to reporting by IEEE Spectrum and others. Fortunately, radar on the ground provided a more accurate reading, and controllers got the plane to its destination safely. The likely cause for the wonky GPS readings? Military activity that caused jamming of the signals, according to an account from NASA's Aviation Safety Reporting System, which collates information provided by pilots, air traffic controllers and other aviation professionals. The midsize business jet was off-course and flying too low in the mountainous terrain. The GPS signals near the airport were unreliable, and smoke in the area made for poor visibility. On this day in August 2018, however, a problem arose. Like a lot of planes, it was tuned to GPS for guidance. The Cessna Citation Excel was approaching the Sun Valley, Idaho, airport when something seemed off about its flight path. The latest generation of GPS satellite as it probably looks in orbit.