The GPS system could fail by 2010

The Global Positioning System or Global Positioning System, better known by the acronym GPS might fail next year because of lack of funds, reported the Government Accountability Office of the United States. The report indicates that the U.S. Air Force, responsible for managing the network of satellites that enable the operation of GPS, has neglected his duties.

GPS is used in a myriad of human activities such as shipping by land, sea and air transport, mobile telephony, topography, salvage and rescue, to security systems and fleet management. Apparently this would be jeopardized by neglect and to prevent the damage it needs some 2 000 million dollars to upgrade the network of satellites.

"When the old satellites beginning in 2010 to record failures, there is a high probability that the network falls below the number of satellites required to provide the level of service to the United States Government has undertaken," says the study.

The GPS system was developed by the Department of Defense United States and is the only global satellite navigation that works now. GPS works through a network of 27 satellites orbiting the globe, covering the entire surface of the earth. The Soviet Union had a similar system called GLONASS and the European Union is developing a system called Galileo which should be operational in 2011.