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Photo credit Flying Jenny on Flickr Here in Cape Canaveral the windows were rattling as a powerful Delta IV rocket rumbled into space from nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The rocket is carrying a GPS satellite into space, the first of 30 that will eventually replace the global positioning satellites currently orbiting the earth. I wrote about this in this week's Surfin Safari column at WorldNetDaily. GPS, a constellation of 24 satellites with six backups, will be able to pinpoint your location within three feet, compared with a margin of error of 20 feet or more today. The U.S....

Without it, ATMs would stop spitting out cash, Wall Street could blunder billions of dollars in stock trades and clueless drivers would get lost. It's GPS, and it's everywhere. Although most people may associate the Global Positioning System with the navigation devices that are becoming standard equipment on new cars, GPS has become a nerve center for the 21st century rivaling the Internet — enabling cargo companies to track shipments, guiding firefighters to hot spots and even helping people find lost dogs. "It's a ubiquitous utility that everybody takes for granted now," said Bradford W. Parkinson. He should know. Three...

On the bridge of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, there’s a 20-year-old quartermaster with a No. 2 pencil, a compass and a big map unfurled on a table. In one of the ironies of America’s modern Navy, that map and that quartermaster are the official method of navigation for the $4 billion carrier and the 5,000 souls on board. Even as the Navy installs the most high-tech equipment on its carriers — including the San Diego-based Carl Vinson, which recently returned to the fleet after a four-year overhaul — none of the nation’s 11 flattops is certified to rely on...

military did no advance testing on a specific type of military GPS receiver that had problems picking up locator signals after a change in ground-control software, the Air Force said Monday. The Air Force tested other equipment, but none of it contained the type of receiver that was unable to lock on to Global Positioning System satellites after the change, said Joe Davidson, a spokesman for the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center. The manufacturer of the receivers, Trimble Advanced and Military Systems, said it ran its own advance tests using specifications from the Air Force GPS Wing and...

More than 8,000 deployed military GPS receivers experienced compatibility problems with the most recent upgrade to the timing and navigation constellation’s ground control segment, but the U.S. Air Force has implemented an interim fix while it validates a permanent solution. When the Air Force upgraded the GPS Operational Control Segment Jan. 11, some military users began reporting their systems were losing GPS signals. The problem was isolated to a specific type of GPS receiver known as the Selective Availability Anti-Spoofing Module (SAASM) deployed in at least 86 U.S. weapons systems that were having trouble authenticating a new messaging format implemented...

The most recent upgrade to the GPS ground control segment created an incompatibility issue with a specific type of military GPS receiver used on at least 86 different U.S. weapon systems, some of which cannot be used until the problem is fixed, according to the U.S. Air Force. The Air Force said in an April 30 posting on the Federal Business Opportunities website that it gave a $900,000 sole source contract in February to the receivers’ maker — Trimble Advanced & Military Systems of Sunnyvale, Calif., — to help the Air Force Space Command’s GPS Wing track downand modify the...

The US Army is pushing to get precision mortars developed and deployed to the field in Afghanistan as soon as possible. Mortars are lighter and can be towed by a HMMWV or MRAP, or carried and fired from inside M113 or Stryker APCs, making them easier to deploy than heavier cannon artillery. When indirect fire support is needed against enemies who are dug in along mountain ridgelines and other high positions, or in an urban area where which building you hit matters a great deal, getting the job done requires precision artillery. That capability has already come to MLRS rockets...

The cameras, which combine number plate reading technology with a global positioning satellite receiver, are similar to those used in roadworks. The AA said it believed the new system could cover a network of streets as opposed to a straight line, and was “probably geared up to zones in residential areas.” The Home Office is testing the cameras at two sites, one in Southwark, London, and the other A374 between Antony and Torpoint in Cornwall. The `SpeedSpike’ system, which calculates average speed between any two points in the network, has been developed by PIPS Technology Ltd, an American-owned company with...

Boeing today announced that, as part of the Raytheon team awarded the space-based Global Positioning System (GPS) advanced control segment program (OCX), it will develop portions of the U.S. Air Force's new ground control segment. GPS OCX will provide more secure, accurate, and precise navigation around the world for military, humanitarian and commercial applications. The development contract, awarded recently by the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center's GPS Wing, is valued at more than $880 million over six years, including five option years for sustainment. Boeing has provided ground operations sustainment support for the current GPS II fleet for...

Note: The following text is a quote: Eight Area Men Sentenced on Federal Racketeering Charges Involving Conspiracy to Transfer Cash and Checks to the Palestinian Territories ST. LOUIS, MO—The United States Attorney’s office announced today that eight members of a criminal enterprise operating out of five St. Louis area convenience stores have been sentenced on charges of federal racketeering or related charges. As far back as 2000, the RICO conspiracy has involved bank fraud, receipt of stolen property, conducting an unlicensed money transmitting business, purchasing contraband cigarettes for resale, evading reporting requirement on exporting monetary instruments, and transporting monetary instruments...

Note: The following text is a quote: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Thursday, March 18, 2010 Chicago Resident David Coleman Headley Pleads Guilty to Role in India and Denmark Terrorism Conspiracies Admits Conducting Surveillance for Lashkar e Tayyiba in Planning 2008 Mumbai Attacks David Coleman Headley, a U.S. citizen of partial Pakistani descent, pleaded guilty today to a dozen federal terrorism charges, admitting that he participated in planning the November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, as well as later planning to attack a Danish newspaper. In pleading guilty to all 12 counts that were brought against him in December and were...

Mike Hanson plans to hike the 2,174-mile Appalachian Trail end to end, without ever seeing the ground under his feet. On Monday in Georgia, the St. Louis Park man -- who lost his sight at birth -- will start his seven-month trek to Maine, navigating by GPS. He has mastered its use by cell phone and trusts global positioning technology to steer his every step. "It gives me everything I would need to know about the trail but the view," Hanson said. "I will be able to hear and smell what is going on." If he makes it, he'll be...

SARNIA, Ont. -- A Texas man driving to New York with $33,000 worth of marijuana was sentenced to two years in jail after his GPS directed him over the border and into Canada. Jesus Fontanez-Medina, 54, pleaded guilty in Sarnia court Tuesday to importing marijuana. He was driving a 1999 Blazer with Massachusetts licence plates on Feb. 7 when he entered Canada with a passenger at 5 p.m. Federal prosecutor Michael Robb said outside the courtroom that a GPS navigational system in the vehicle apparently led him to the border. The passenger, charged with a similar offence, is still before...

The US Air Force has received its first global positioning system (GPS) IIF satellite. It will undergo final preparations for launch at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, a media report said. The USAF's Space Vehicle 1 (SV-1), the first of 12 GPS IIF satellites, is scheduled to be launch on a United Launch Alliance Delta IV vehicle, by end of this year, a statement by Boeing said. Boeing delivered the next-generation navigation spacecraft, from its satellite manufacturing facility in El Segundo, aboard a Boeing-built C-17 Globemaster III airlifter. The GPS IIF system will bring enhanced performance to the GPS constellation...

The Beidou (Compass) Navigation Satellite System, which will be completed in 2020 with 35 satellites, will enable China to shake off its dependence on GPS and achieve huge economic benefits," Pang Zhihao, a senior researcher with the China Academy of Space Technology, told China Daily. Navigation systems deliver data from satellites that allow travelers, drivers, and military officials directions on locations and travel advice. The third Beidou satellite will lift off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan province at "an appropriate moment soon", atop a Long March-3C carrier, the center said on Friday in a statement. Both the...

Two years ago, when the FBI was stymied by a band of armed robbers known as the "Scarecrow Bandits" that had robbed more than 20 Texas banks, it came up with a novel method of locating the thieves. FBI agents obtained logs from mobile phone companies corresponding to what their cellular towers had recorded at the time of a dozen different bank robberies in the Dallas area. The voluminous records showed that two phones had made calls around the time of all 12 heists, and that those phones belonged to men named Tony Hewitt and Corey Duffey. A jury eventually...

A wing kit that adds satellite guidance to torpedoes dropped from aircraft is among the latest technologies that Tucson-based Raytheon Missile Systems is marketing to international customers. Raytheon's Fish Hawk wing kit - which the company is showing off this week at the Singapore Airshow - is designed to fit on Raytheon's MK-54 lightweight torpedo, which is dropped from anti-submarine warfare aircraft. The kit guides the torpedo to a target area with a GPS satellite and inertial navigation system and targeting information from an aircraft controller. Once the system descends to a specific location at lower altitude and speed, the...

The U.S. Army is buying 46 more HIMARS rocket launchers, for about $3 million each. Because of the success of the GPS version of the U.S. MLRS rocket, the smaller, truck mounted MLRS (HIMARS) rocket launcher system has become more popular. HIMARS carriers only one six MLRS rocket container (instead of two in the original MLRS vehicle), but the 12 ton truck can fit into a C-130 transport (unlike the 22 ton tracked MLRS) and is much cheaper to operate. The first HIMARS entered service in 2005, about a year after GPS guided rockets did. The 680 pound GMLRS (guided...

U.S. Air Force is concerned about American dependence on space satellites, particularly the GPS birds. The air force believes China is developing the ability to carry out a major attack on American military satellites. Their proposed solution is to take GPS out of orbit, and make it portable. High flying aircraft, UAVs or blimps would take over satellite communications, surveillance and navigation (GPS) chores, although for smaller areas. This would make GPS, and other satellite functions, more resilient to attack. This is part of a trend in which military satellites are getting priced out of the market by cheaper manned...

The U.S. Air Force test program for its Minuteman III ICBMs has been interrupted by a "mechanical problem" that will delay the next test seven months. The missile, selected at random from those stored in Midwest silos, was brought to Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, placed in a silo there, and readied for firing into the Pacific. But during the installation of the missile in the silo, a problem was encountered. The air force won't say what exactly the problems is, or if it is something common to other Minuteman missiles. This kind of testing is not as realistic...