It is maintained by the United States government and is freely accessible by anyone with a GPS receiver. In addition to GPS other systems are in use or under development. The Russian GLObal NAvigation Satellite System (GLONASS) is for use by the Russian military. There are also the planned Chinese Compass navigation system and Galileo positioning system of the European Union (EU). GPS was created and realized by the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) and was originally run with 24 satellites. It was established in 1973 to overcome the limitations of previous navigation systems.

A GPS receiver calculates its position by precisely timing the signals sent by GPS satellites high above the Earth. Each satellite continually transmits messages that include

• the time the message was transmitted
• precise orbital information (the ephemeris)
• the general system health and rough orbits of all GPS satellites (the almanac).

The receiver utilizes the messages it receives to determine the transit time of each message and computes the distances to each satellite. These distances along with the satellites’ locations are used with the possible aid of trilateration, depending on which algorithm is used, to compute the position of the receiver. This position is then displayed, perhaps with a moving map display or latitude and longitude; elevation information may be included. Many GPS units show derived information such as direction and speed, calculated from position changes.

Three satellites might seem enough to solve for position, since space has three dimensions and a position near the Earth’s surface can be assumed. However, even a very small clock error multiplied by the very large speed of light[36] — the speed at which satellite signals propagate — results in a large positional error. Therefore receivers use four or more satellites to solve for the receiver’s location and time. The very accurately computed time is effectively hidden by most GPS applications, which use only the location. A few specialized GPS applications do however use the time; these include time transfer, traffic signal timing, and synchronization of cell phone base stations.

Although four satellites are required for normal operation, fewer apply in special cases. If one variable is already known, a receiver can determine its position using only three satellites. (For example, a ship or plane may have known elevation.) Some GPS receivers may use additional clues or assumptions (such as reusing the last known altitude, dead reckoning, inertial navigation, or including information from the vehicle computer) to give a less accurate (degraded) position when fewer than four satellites are visible.

Satellite frequencies

All satellites broadcast at the same two frequencies, 1.57542 GHz (L1 signal) and 1.2276 GHz (L2 signal). The satellite network uses a CDMA spread-spectrum technique where the low-bitrate message data is encoded with a high-rate pseudo-random (PRN) sequence that is different for each satellite. The receiver must be aware of the PRN codes for each satellite to reconstruct the actual message data. The C/A code, for civilian use, transmits data at 1.023 million chips per second, whereas the P code, for U.S. military use, transmits at 10.23 million chips per second. The L1 carrier is modulated by both the C/A and P codes, while the L2 carrier is only modulated by the P code.[59] The P code can be encrypted as a so-called P(Y) code which is only available to military equipment with a proper decryption key. Both the C/A and P(Y) codes impart the precise time-of-day to the user.

Information from wikipedia