A GPS Blackout Would Shut Down the World

Around 12,500 miles above our heads, the satellites that make up the Global Positioning System (GPS) quietly keep the world running. A blackout would result in almost instantaneous chaos. “You would see traffic jams, a lot more traffic accidents, because transportation is going to see the first most immediate impact,” says Dana Goward, the founder of the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation, a charity which works to strengthen GPS. Thousands of planes in the air, which use GPS among other systems for navigation and precision landing, would face a wave of uncertainty. Then other critical parts of society—from financial transactions to energy production systems—which have come to rely upon the precision positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) provided by the US-owned constellation of 31 GPS satellites may start to stutter. The ripples would be felt around the world. “If it was a catastrophic moment that happened at a blink of an eye and we lost GPS entirely, you would see this ... Read full article.