GPS faces failure in 2010 if no replacement is done

Global Positioning System or GPS faces the possibility of failure next year.

And why?

Because the current aging satellites are having delays in being replaced due to the under-invested U.S. Air Force. For example, the launch date for a satellite replacement this November was delayed three years after the original launch date.

The U.S. Air Force Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, “In recent years, the Air Force has struggled to successfully build GPS satellites within cost and schedule goals. Such a gap in capability could have wide-ranging impacts on all GPS users, though there are measures the Air Force and others can take to plan for and minimize these impacts.”

GAO recommends that future launch dates to be speed-up if they want to avoid such an issue which GAO considered to be an “essential to national security”.