GPS's Early Stages

Development of the technology for the GPS began back in the 1960s. The US Navy and Air Force were looking into developing some type of system that could navigate for three dimensions. Two projects were then funded by the Navy, one called Transit and the other Timation. Transit was a satellite based navigation system that was used mainly for the US Navy's submarine fleet. The benefit of these systems were that they allowed the Navy to locate ballistic missle submarines that could be threatening. The timation technology was the another GSP predeccessor that used space based technolgy for navigation. This models used atomic clocks which were able to measure time as well as frequency.

While the Navy was developing their Timation and Transit technologies, the Air Force was working on a technology that could measure the altitude, longitude, and latitude. When tested in New Mexico in 1972, the Air Force's prototype called 621B was shown to be accurate up to a hundredth of a mile. This model used a techonology called Pseudorandomnoise (PRN) which was able to pick up a variety of noises to locate certain frequencies, and reject noises that caused interference and/or jamming in the system. Then in 1973 the Deputy Secretary of Defense called for the development of a new system which would take components of all the prototypes available and combine them. This new model was to be known as the Defense Navigation Satellite System (DNSS). The DNSS was to be a joint project among all of the military factions.

Introduction to the GPS

The Global Positioning System or GPS is a service that is widely used today. Civilians have car GPSs as well as hand-held devices at their disposal. But this technology was originally developed by the Department of Defense for the US Air Force. Satellites in orbit around the earth are able to determine the exact location of an individual that is accurate to a few hundred feet. These 24 satellites that are in orbit can give one their location in three dimensions. Even though the GPS technology was developed for government use, it became available for the public only a few years later, even before it became fully operational for the government. In today's world GPS devices are used in a number of different industries, and are even depended on for many professions (i.e taxis, delivery). In a little over a decade, this techonlogy has evolved and continues to evolve as it becomes commonplace in our world.