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News: Processing to launch a GPS Satellite
We all know and use GPS technology in some form every day of our lives, but have you stopped to think how this technology came into being, and how it is maintained? The theory of navigation goes back a long way and and is very closely linked to accurate timing. The more accurate the time the more accurate your location can be determined.
Back in 1730 John Harrison created a marine clock to compete for the £20,000 Longitude Prize, a competition to find the most accurate timepiece to enable mariners to navigate across the seas. Accurate time combined with a sextant and a chart enabled the early navigators to determine with reasonable precision where on the planet they were.
Jump forward nearly 300 years and the same principles of precise timing and triangulation are still being used, this time using GPS Satellites, atomic clocks and computer algorithms. This, of course, is all transparent to us, we just see a moving dot on a map showing us where we are.
How does this all work? Rather than explain this again we have an excellent article describing How does the Global Positioning System work?. This article explains how a GPS satellite is prepared for launch into orbit.
Click here to read more...
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Posted on Wednesday, July 30 @ 13:27:54 UTC by Mike Barrett |
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