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What Is GPS?The Global Positioning
System (GPS)
is a navigation and precise-positioning tool. Developed by the Department
of Defense in 1973, GPS was originally designed to assist
soldiers and military vehicles, planes, and ships in accurately determining
their locations world-wide. Today, the uses of GPS have extended to
include both the commercial and scientific worlds. Commercially, GPS
is used as a navigation and positioning tool in airplanes, boats, cars,
and for almost all outdoor recreational activities such as hiking, fishing,
and kayaking. In the scientific community, GPS plays an important role
in the earth sciences. Meteorologists use it for weather forecasting
and global climate studies; and geologists can use it as a highly accurate
method of surveying and in earthquake studies to measure tectonic motions
during and in between earthquakes.
What
is GPS?
Last modified on 8/13/98 by Maggi Glasscoe (scignedu@jpl.nasa.gov)
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