Thanks to GPS, your car, your phone, flat your see knows exactly where you are above the planet, by listening to a satellite signal from 12,000 miles above your head. GPS is often on, you don't salary anything to apply it, and you never shortage to know how it works.
But don't you friendly of wonder?
The U.S. air constrain runs the American Global Positioning System. "We're equal haughty of it. We understand providing that utility to the planet, above behalf of the United States air Force, though free!" laughed Brigadier customary DeAnna Burt, who oversees GPS though the director of operations at air constrain space direction at Peterson air constrain base at Colorado Springs.
Rendering of a GPS III satellite at orbit. Lockheed Martin
While mankind y crowd fancy of GPS though "that navigation commerce above my phone," it is much more: "Think almost your ATMs, at the gas pump, the New York Stock Exchange, the internet, your country grids – they shortage a timing standard, to mixture it up almost the world," said Gen. Burt.
The GPS system deploys a constellation of 31 satellites, each beaming a one-way radio signal towards Earth. "Those signals are being proclaim continuously," said Gen. Burt. "And when you're at view of that satellite, your receiver will imagine the four best satellites at view. You wish one direct overhead and three above the horizon – that gives you the best position."
Of course, those sharp satellites don't fly themselves. at Schriever air constrain base at Colorado Springs, a team of youth technicians mans the GPS Master cope with station 24 hours a day, watching above the satellites. The commands they send can adapt the satellites' positions or check their health.
Technicians overhear satellites at the GPS Master cope with Station, at Schriever air constrain base at Colorado Springs, Colo. CBS News
Correspondent David Pogue asked, "Is there ever trouble?"
"I was above responsibility though a crew commander a mixture of years ago," said the operations flight commander, Captain Josh Harnish, "when we had a satellite and it turned out that the satellite's antenna was neutral difficult broken."
"Do you eat a spare?"
"We truly eat almost four on-orbit spares, though you can't neutral send a fix-it mankind up to space," Captain Harnish said.
The oldest strong GPS satellite is almost 26 years old now – older than some of the technicians controlling them. The operators, he said, "go over a equal rigid training program, and then any time we oration to the satellites, two crowd eat to truly observe and agree what's going to that satellite."
"So, one person couldn't proceed rogue?"
"That's correct. There is no self-destruct command, let's neutral spot that to rest!"
It's agreeable to know that such an incredibly significant system is at good hands, and absolutely, positively safe. Right?
When Pogue asked if there were a method an opponent of our crowd could accept out the vulgar system, Dana Goward, headmaster of the Resilient Navigation Timing basis (a gang dedicated to protecting GPS), replied, "Oh, absolutely. And they wouldn't necessarily eat to assault the satellites. It's much easier to assault the signals. GPS is hence integrated into vulgar of our systems that any significant disruption used to exist catastrophic, around an existential threat."
At the U.S. Naval Observatory, a master clock synchronizes the GPS satellites' clocks. CBS News
Originally, the GPS network was developed though one main customer: the U.S. military, whose shortage though battlefield coordination was imperative: "The mandate was to spot five bombs at the equal hole," Goward said. "About ten years after GPS was deployed, some crowd at the military were astonished to detect out that it was being used by civilians at all."
The GPS system though we now know it became operational at 1995. "Today, sole a small division of crowd that apply GPS eat anything to conduct with the military," Goward said. "Mostly, it's the underpinnings of our networked, technological world."
But how vulnerable is the system?
Pogue asked, "So, if you and I were writing a screenplay almost North Korean poor guys, used to it exist plausible to fancy of a scenario where they could cost down the vulgar system?"
"Yes, it could happen," Goward said. "A suitcase-size GPS jammer, though instance, could eat a huge shock above a main metropolitan area, specially if it was located above an aerial platform."
Jamming manner drowning out the GPS signal here above Earth. if you're an evil-doer, you don't eat to build some dear rocket to blow up our satellites; you can neutral proclaim hence much radio gibberish that total receivers can't listen the satellites.
General Burt says she's well aware of the threat. The two main concerns she has are jamming and cyber intrusion. And to campaign against those threats, the next generation of satellites, GPS III, are being built and deployed. "GPS III will exist three epoch more accurate, and eat eight epoch more jam resistance," she said.
GPS III satellites are being built by Lockheed Martin. Pogue – isolate of the first network camera crew ever allowed interior the Lockheed Martin mill – donned protective garb to enter the facility's wipe room, where air is changed out at least 10 epoch per hour.
Even a particle of wipe could bruise the satellite once it's at space. "Think almost a fleck of foil that country exist attached to your clothes, and it gets into the spacecraft? [It] could truly short out some of our electronics," said Tonya Ladwig, who is at scold of the GPS III program at Lockheed.
David Pogue with Lockheed Martin's Tonya Ladwig, with one of the GPS III satellites below construction. CBS News
Two of the new GPS III satellites are already at space; the next six are at this room, at different stages of construction. each one is built by hand, and takes 18 months to complete.
"So, this time next year, my phone will exist talking to this?" said Pogue.
"Yes, your phone will exist talking to this satellite," Ladwig replied.
"That is indeed freaky!"
By 2034, our complete constellation of GPS satellites will exist GPS III models, which are more acquire against jamming and cyberattacks.
Even so, GPS watchdog Dana Goward used to alike to visit a backup system above the ground, too. "Users will essentially exist bulletproof to any kinds of disruption if they're using both systems," he said, calling the ground-based system complementary.
In the meantime, Brigadier customary DeAnna Burt says she intends to own precise above worrying almost protecting our GPS.
"My profession is to compose certain you don't eat to worry," she laughed. "But I conduct fancy we shortage to exist aware, though a nation, that there are threats, and there are crowd wanting to threaten our method of life. And we eat to exist prepared when they come."
For more info:
GPS: The Global Positioning SystemResilient Navigation Timing FoundationU.S. Naval Observatory, Washington, D.C.GPS III at Lockheed Martin
Story produced by Amol Mhatre.
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