How GPS Changed Everything

The Global Positioning System (GPS), fully operational since 1995, has redefined what it means to navigate in the world. GPS receivers serve to guide airplanes, Uber drivers, tractors and satellites. GPS timing synchronizes power grids, telecommunications networks and bank transactions. GPS is also essential in scientific measurements of the motion of ice sheets, variations in Earth’s gravity field, and atmospheric conditions used in numerical weather prediction.
How is it that a system, originally intended to support worldwide military operations, has created such broad-reaching benefits?  Professor Penina Axelrad’s CU on the Weekend presentation will describe the “HOW.”  That is, how GPS works and how its key technical elements came together with serendipitous parallel developments to have an unprecedented impact on our daily lives and scientific discovery.  She will also discuss threats to GPS utility and the evolving landscape of global navigation satellite system capabilities.
Tours of the aerospace building will be offered before and after the lecture.