subject: The History Of Gps [print this page] With the launch of the Soviet Union's Sputnik satellite in 1957 scientists at the Applied Physics Laboratory found that they could predict the orbit of the Sputnik with great accuracy using radar and what were at the time advanced computers. This came as a great shock to the Soviets who had no matching ability.
Building on the knowledge gained the first satellite navigation system was launched in 1960 and was employed by the Navy in targeting their submarine based nuclear missiles. Five satellites were put in orbit and an accurate position could be determined once an hour.
During the cold war the threat of nuclear annihilation was considered so grave that congress saw the justification of spending tens of billions of dollars to develop the Global Positioning Satellite system as a part of Ronald Reagan's Star War's policy.
In 1983 , due to a failure of navigational equipment, Korean Airlines flight 007 went off course and drifted into Soviet airspace.Tensions were at an extreme between the USSR and the United States at this time and the Soviet's shot down the civilian airliner killing 269 people.In the aftermath President Reagan announced that the then ultra secret GPS technology would become available for civilian use when fully developed.
By 1985 there were 10 first generation satellites in orbit. The first gulf war in 1990-1991 was the first major military operation where the GPS technology was used . The system achieved fully operational status in April of 1995 and was made available to the public under thew policy of Selective Availability which excluded data on certain sensitive areas. This was discontinued in 2000 allowing the use of the non degraded signal globally.
Today there are 31 satellites in orbit.The Russian system which was formerly restricted to the military was made fully available to the public in 2007. The European Union , China and India currently have plans to deploy their own GPS systems.
In 2004 Qualcomm successfully tested the use of GPS in mobile phones opening the door far all the applications we have available today. All of this brings us to the point of helping to make your golf game a little better
