Preparing the Next Generation For Your American Global Positioning System

GPS is always on, you don't pay anything to use it

(CBS NEWS) – Thanks to GPS, your car, your phone, even your watch knows exactly where you are on the planet, by listening to a satellite signal from 12,000 miles over your head.

GPS is always on, you don’t pay anything to use it, and you never need to know how it works.

But don’t you kind of wonder?

The U.S. Air Force runs the American Global Positioning System.

“We’re very proud of it. We enjoy providing that utility to the planet, on behalf of the United States Air Force, for free!” laughed Brigadier General DeAnna Burt, who oversees GPS as the director of operations at Air Force Space Command at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs.

While many people think of GPS as “that navigation thing on my phone,” it is much more: “Think about your ATMs, at the gas pump, the New York Stock Exchange, the internet, your power grids – they need a timing standard, to link it up around the world,” said Gen. Burt.

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