In 1998, Vice President Al Gore announced plans to upgrade GPS with two new civilian signals for enhanced user accuracy and reliability, particularly with respect to aviation safety.
Atomic clocks on the GPS satellites are set to "GPS time", which is the number of seconds since 00:00:00 UTC, January 6, 1980. UTC is short for Coordinated Universal Time. Today, GPS time is 14 seconds ahead of UTC, because it does not follow leap seconds. That's why new GPS units initially show the incorrect time after achieving a GPS lock for the first time. However, this is usually corrected on the display within 15 minutes once the UTC offset message is received for the first time.
When it was first deployed, GPS included a feature called Selective Availability (or SA) that introduced intentional errors of up to a hundred meters into the publicly available navigation signals, making it difficult to use for guiding long range missiles to precise targets. Additional accuracy was available in the signal, but in an encrypted form that was only available to the United States military, its allies and a few others, mostly government users.
The United States Department of Defense developed the system, officially named NAVSTAR GPS (Navigation Signal Timing and Ranging GPS), and the satellites are managed by the 50th Space Wing at Schriever Air Force Base. Although the cost of maintaining the system is significant, GPS is available for free use in civilian and commercial applications.
In late 2005, the US government introduced the first in a series of new generation GPS staellites offering new capabilities. Chief among these is a second civilian GPS signal called L2C for greater accuracy and reliability.
GPS has become a vital global utility, indispensable for modern navigation on land, sea, and air around the world, as well as an important tool for map-making, and land surveying. GPS also provides an extremely precise time reference, required for telecommunications and some scientific research, including the study of earthquakes.
GPS was first made available for commercial applications in 1983, after the Soviet Air Force shot down the civilian airliner KAL 007 in restricted Soviet airspace, killing all 269 people on board.
GPS receivers come in a variety of consumer formats, and today can be found in cars, watches, phones boats and planes. Major manufacturers include Trimble, Garmin and Leica, low-end, hand-held consumer units are often available at less than $100 per unit.
In early years, the US military made the civilian application purposefully less powerful than it could. But since August 2000, the GPS civilian application provides the accuracy of GPS signals to within 2 meters (6 ft). Fact is, GPS accuracy can be improved further, to about 1 cm (half an inch) over short distances, using techniques such as Differential GPS (DGPS).
The GPS system uses a satellite constellation of 24 satellites in intermediate circular orbits. The orbits are designed so at least four satellites are always within line of sight from almost any place on earth. The constellation also includes three spare satellites in orbit.
GPS allows the military to accurately target its missile arsenal, largely composed of cruise missiles and precision-guided munitions. This was born out by the use of SOFLAM (Special Operations Forces Laser Acquisition Markers) targeting during the attacks on Tora Bora in Afghanistan. It also improves the accuracy of the US submarine launched ballistic missiles by providing precise locational information to the submarine commanders. Finally, command and control over troops is improved because commanders know precisely where their troops and the enemy are located on the battlefield.
GPS derives in part from its predecssor, the LORAN navigation system. LORAN was designed for ship and airplane navigation in the 1940s for use during World War II.