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Uk Gps Expert Warns Of Need To Plan For Loss......


Team Ballibeg

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Interesting in what way? There are several spare sats, the system does not fall apart just becasue there are one or two short of the required number for perfect coverage, and it does not take long to get more up there. Whilst there are spares, why should the US pay to bung loads more sats into orbit at great expense that will add nothing but will break down earlier than if launched later?

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I think that report needs some kind of confirmation :ph34r:

 

I'm sure if NASA can put something into space, they can repair or replace it (after all, they can get to Mars! :ph34r:

 

I can't see how something that had such a short predicted lifespan would be taken up by so many companies/governments etc.

 

Maybe the author's on the Gallileo project payroll :laughing::unsure::blink:

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I can see his point. It may be slightly scaremongering, but if a majority of sats are now past their best before date, they could all fail pretty much simultaneously. Unlikely, yes. Disasterous, probably not. But I can see it could be possible with a large number of failed sats that there would be 'bad coverage' times at certain places.

 

I think he's saying what most of us round here know anyway... don't RELY on the GPS signals. They're fine for most of the time, but if we all lose those map reading and common sense skills, then there's an outage or huge drop in accuracy, it could leave a lot of us floundering.

 

That's my take on the matter, anyhow.

 

Cheers,

 

Stu

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I can see his point. It may be slightly scaremongering, but if a majority of sats are now past their best before date, they could all fail pretty much simultaneously. Unlikely, yes. Disasterous, probably not.

You could be killed if all the bricks in your house failed, pretty much simultaneously - but this is statistically improbable.

 

It would be even less probable, if you were able to remotely monitor the condition of every single brick twenty-four hours a day. This hardly practical for bricks - but the GPS Master Control Station DOES do it for satellites.

 

In fact, they've just improved their facilities for doing so...

 

USCG Info page

 

-Wlw.

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