Sub-Orbital Tracking Solutions

With so many sub-orbital satellites in place, one may be tempted to ask: do the satellites orbit around the earth, or does the earth revolve around satellites? The world belongs to satellites. Cellular communications, military tracking solutions, and everyday direction finders all rely on satellite relays. All cellphones, laptops, netbooks, and GPS navigational units triangular and relay your position and phone calls via sub-orbital satellites. When once they were used as spy satellites (and may still are), today they relay and convey more mundane conversations, directions, and information.

Despite the Soviet’s jump in satellite technology (Sputnik), the United States was the first nation to have a working satellite system in orbit. Known as NAVSTAR-GPS, it was developed and maintained exclusively by the United States Air Force. At any given time, the tracking solutions system uses three satellites to triangulate the position of a vehicle or object. It was sanctioned for civilian use by President Reagan and has become a more and more integral part of everyday Americans’ lives. Now, GPS systems are ubiquitous on all cellphones.

Begun by the Soviets in 1976, the Russian Federation still relies on the GLONASS satellite system. In all, it utilizes 24 total satellites, with 21 required for processing any set of coordinates, and 3 held in reserve to protect against possible malfunctions. The GLONASS system uses two signals to calculate position and a third signal to calculate the velocity of a given vehicle or moving object. Interestingly, this system was developed to replace the ancient Tsikada System, which used to take up to an hour to find the given position of a moving target.

The European nations, including portions of former Eastern Bloc countries, use a tracking solutions system known as GALILEO. In 2007, all 27-member countries, with plans to be fully operational by 2013, unanimously approved the system. There will be bases in both Italy and Germany, and unlike other GPS systems, Galileo was created by the public — not the military — meaning that the military would not have the ability to block it from public use like other countries.

The Chinese, eager to capitalize on the popularity of cellphone usage, has launched its own tracking system, known as COMPASS. When it has completed all of its launches, it will include 35 sub-orbital satellites that span the entire globe. Chinese officials claim there will be two types of service: public and restricted (read as military). It remains to be seen how much GPS access the government will allow private citizens, given its propensity to control even the minutiae of its citizens’ activities. Regardless, the tracking solutions move ever forward.

For your everyday tracking solutions, you can depend on GPS systems available at your nearest box store — or online. Never be lost again, thanks to the eyes in the sky.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 3rd, 2010 at 5:51 am and is filed under GPS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.