GPS at Risk: Doomsday 2010

[DavidG]

Report by United States Government Accountability Office (GAO)

http://sidt.gpsworld.com/gpssidt/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=597841

 

[dzzz]

A couple years of reading maps may not be a bad thing.

 

[Tennmogger]

IMHO, just typical 'sky's falling' retoric. More funding is the goal.

Anytime our local gov gets a little low on funds (our tax money) after building their version of the Taj Mahal, they start the rumor that the schools are out of money and will have to fire teachers. Then we know there's a tax vote coming up.


Tennmogger

 

[DaveInDenver]

IMHO, just typical 'sky's falling' retoric. More funding is the goal.

Actually, while this is probably not completely off base, Boeing tripped across an issue with the Block IIF vehicles with the L2 transmitter in t-vac at full power that has been a headache. Apparently it's an end-of-life issue with the transmitter at full power. The first IIF birds were supposed to launch in October but this will delay them until the end of the year if they are lucky.

The USAF was also hurrying to secure L5 spectrum before August of this year with the modernized Block IIR-M birds. That focus to get ITU spectrum along with some problems in the Delta rockets delayed a launch originally scheduled for June 2008 until this past March, so they are behind by a couple of missions.

So, yes, there are legitimate problems with the GPS replacement vehicles, budget woes not withstanding. As it is about 90% of the constellation is on target to be in service beyond their design life and about half of them are at the point that a single component failure will take them off line permanently. The contact for the Block III satellites was also just let late in 2008, so the next generation is way down the road at this point (around 2014).