GPS: Twenty years of positioning, navigation, timing

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Rachel Loftis
  • 99th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, Nev. --  In the past, leaving the house without an atlas or map full of coordinates and colorful directions sometimes led to the driver leading their passengers through an abyss of twists and turns during a simple trip across town.

However, those days came to an end with the explosion of the Global Positioning System 20 years ago.

Today, GPS technology is highly relied on in most areas of modern functionality. According to the Global Navigation Satellite Systems Agency, there are four billion GPS-enabled devices worldwide.

It is often forgotten or unknown that GPS began as a military technology, and is still integral to military operations today.

"The advances in GPS over time have resulted in more compact systems that can be incorporated into fighter aircraft," said Lt. Col. Jon Berardinelli, U.S. Air Force Weapons School deputy commandant. "Additionally, newer systems incorporate features that make them more resistant to jamming in combat operations. You can use it in a contested environment where the enemy is attempting to deny the GPS signal."

GPS military capabilities were first put to the test in 1990 and 1991 during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, and were relied on heavily by allied troops to navigate the featureless deserts in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq.

Col. Jeffrey Weed, 414th Combat Training Squadron commander, said pilots didn't always use GPS technology.

"What did pilots do before GPS? Every airplane had an INS, an inertial navigational system," said Weed. "Let's just say it's a self-contained system on an airplane that does a pretty good job of telling you where you are and you would also use radio navigational aids that also told you where you were in relation to the ground."

According to Berardinelli, GPS has made a gigantic impact on air-to-ground employment in the USAF because of its contribution to guiding munitions. Prior to GPS, the pilot had to guide precision weapons into the target with an optical device or laser designation. With GPS the pilot has the option of inputting coordinates and allowing the munition, with the help of satellites, to guide itself.

"The weapons we drop are hitting targets more accurately, which means the Nevada Test and Training Range has to spend more money on replacing targets that get destroyed because the weapons are very accurate," said Weed. "In the old days of Nellis Air Force Base, the airspace was defined by easily-identifiable things on the ground so you could stay within the airspace.

"It's not that pilots don't have to rely on the ground references anymore, but we have a series of airspace lines within the aircraft that'll allow us to hopefully stay in the airspace a lot better than before. So, it allows us to use corners and edges of the air space we previously wouldn't even dare get close to because now we have a very accurate representation of where we are."

Air Force Space Command plans to continue to enhance the GPS technology over time. In 2017, they will be launching GPS III satellites, which will provide global positioning services for military and civilian use, and is expected to provide three times the accuracy and improve coverage for hard to reach areas.

"In the early days of GPS, there weren't as many satellites as there are today," said Weed. "You actually had to pay some attention to times of which the satellites would be accurate and times of which they wouldn't be. That has now become something you don't have to think about very often because our great Air Force has put satellites in orbit that have made it accurate most of the time, in most of the world. I think that will continue to improve as with any military technology."