How long will gps satellites last

The truth is it's hard to be sure how much damage spoofing GPS signals might do. But just ask those Swedish tourists in Carpi. Knowing that you're lost is one thing; being wrongly convinced you know where you are is another problem altogether.

The author writes the Financial Times's Undercover Economist column. Correction: An earlier version of this story wrongly referred to "a millionth of a second" instead of "a thousandth". Russia denies role in Israeli GPS jamming. Galileo sat-nav system still without service. What do drones and GPS owe to a shipwreck?

Study maps 'extensive Russian GPS spoofing'. Image source, Getty Images. But these are the exceptions. It is that, but it's also a time service. Image source, Layton Thompson. More things that made the modern economy:. China's rival Beidou service is expanding rapidly, with more than 10 satellite launches in Related Topics.

Galileo project. Published 27 June These days, many people take Global Positioning System devices for granted. Most people are familiar with the concept of using a GPS system either as a stand-alone device or in a phone to find one's way around.

GPS can also identify a user's location, which is useful for orientation and even for fun activities such as geocaching finding hidden caches with the use of GPS devices. But there are other uses as well, besides location and navigation.

GPS can also be used for tracking, such as adding a tag to an animal to see the extent of its territory. The technology also assists with mapping, such as helping to better define the outline of a country. There are likely thousands of applications for GPS systems, ranging from everything to helping hikers navigate in remote areas, to assisting farmers with precisely seeding their fields, to assisting drones with finding their targets.

The U. Navy developed the first operational satellite navigation system — called Transit — in the s. These "spin-stabilized" spacecraft — meaning that their spin kept the spacecraft pointing in the same direction — were first used for navigation in by Polaris submarines. Even in those early days, however, the people who built the system could see scientific uses for GPS. In particular, we did not predict the incredible extent to which size and cost would be reduced for everyday applications for the mass market, e.

There were other early systems as well, such as the Navy's Timation satellite that tested the use of accurate clocks in space. This was an important predecessor to Navstar, as that GPS system relies on timing to keep the satellites synchronized.

Meanwhile, other branches of the U. As a result, GPS now effectively operates as a slot constellation with improved coverage in most parts of the world. Learn more at spaceforce. View documents. Return to top of page. The GPS constellation is a mix of old and new satellites. As of November 2, , there were a total of 30 operational satellites in the GPS constellation, not including the decommissioned, on-orbit spares.

It only takes a minute to sign up. Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search. If a large part of the population was killed, but the infrastructure was basically unharmed I know it take people to keep things going, but I guess that is part of the question , how long would I still be able to use my GPS?

How long would communication satellites still send and receive data? What other satellites would be useful to a world where the technology is not destroyed, just declining? How long would such technology work? If I have solar power and can run my laptop and phone, how long until the supporting technologies collapses? Hours, Days, Weeks, months Thanks - LWR.

National power grids are likely to go down within hours if their monitoring stations are abandoned; the exact number of hours will vary from country to country. Rooftop solar panels that are connected to the grid will automatically cut off if the grid goes as a safeguard for people working on the line , but some systems can be switched to power an off-grid socket instead, in which case they should continue to work until the inverter breaks down years although the amount generated depends on the light.

If a spare inverter can be found or if someone knows how to repair the inverter then the next limit will be the panels themselves: after 30 years they will be producing noticeably less power.

The UK and USA landline phone systems are supposed to have enough battery backup to last 1 week without the power grid although I don't think this has had a large-scale test. Only traditional wired phones will benefit, not cordless phones, and only voice calls will benefit, not broadband. If you pick up the phone and hear nothing, you should check for a circuit blow in the microphone and see if it amplifies and if so then wait a while because you may be in a queue to get a dial tone.

US cellphone towers have been known to cut out just hours after grid loss in a severe storm. UK mobile base-stations are not required to have backup power at all, but the UK government does recommend 1 hour of backup power in a base station and backup generators in switching centres, especially after the Tetra project to let emergency services use the same masts on a different frequency.

Data centres protected by UPS units can last anything from 5 minutes to 2 days without power, depending on how good a UPS system they've installed. Diesel standby generators come with 24, 48 or hour fuel tanks.

They can last longer if someone is still around to refuel it and fuel is available, but faults are possible. Thus an abandoned data centre would last anything from 5 minutes to 6 days without power, depending on how good it is. For "the Internet" to work, you'll need the server you're trying to contact to be up and a route of still-working switches etc to get you there.

Probably the first one to fail will be your local one within hours of grid failure at best, possibly minutes or nothing , but if you can somehow get to a working data centre with good backup power then you might be able to use "the Internet" for anything up to 6 days although during that time you will see sites going down one by one mostly on the first day and speeds slowing to a crawl as the remaining routers are forced to map out strange ways of getting your packets to their destination.

GPS and similar systems may last many years, but without ground support they are likely to lose accuracy after 6 months this can be corrected for if you're skilled and after a few years it will become harder to get a GPS fix as the satellites break down one by one.

Once the Internet is down, systems that use Assisted GPS aGPS will no longer be able to download their ephemeris data and will therefore start taking much longer to get a GPS fix than you might previously have been used to. Vehicles are not likely to last more than a few years without maintenance, and in any event require fuel, which you will have to obtain without the use of electric pumps. Municipal water services are not likely to be able to keep up water pressure in supply pipes for more than a few days at best.

After that there will be no running water from mains taps. Old houses with header-tanks will still be able to use their header tanks, typically 40 gallons or so although it's not the nicest water.

After that you will either have to collect rainwater, find a well, or most likely use supplies of bottled water from shops and warehouses. But this is likely to affect only the places with the lowest altitude in town, and anyway it will not happen for some time if the amount of sewage is reduced due to fewer people being alive to generate it.