Read the following text and answer the questions.

1. Why was the GPS created? And by whom?

2. How does it work/operate?

GLOBAL POSITIONING SYSTEM (GPS)

Ivan A. Getting (1912-2003), Roger L. Easton (1912-2014), Bradford Parkinson (b.1935)

If you were an engineer working on the Global Positioning System (GPS), you were doing
something incredible. You were proposing the creation of a new sense that could become
available to every human being on the planet. Humans come equipped with the normal senses:
vision, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. But human definitely do not come equipped with a sense
of direction, especially at night, especially on the open oceans, especially in bad weather where
clouds, frog, and rain obscure every landmark.

The GPS engineers, a team including Ivan Getting, Roger Easton, and Bradford
Parkinson, who were working for the United States Department of Defense, proposed to change
all of that. By 1994, they had created a ubiquitous 1, instantaneous 2, and precise system by
which any human could locate his or her exact position on the planet with roughly 30-foot (10
meter) accuracy, anytime, anywhere.

One of the most andacious 3 parts of the proposed system would be the cost –
approximately $12 billion for a constellation 4 of 24 satellites funded by the US military that
went into orbit between 1989 and 1994. Another audacious part was the technology. The new
GPS system demanded small, accurate atomic clocks that could operate unattended 5for years in
orbit – two of them per satellite. These clocks are not simple devices. And then there was the
technique the engineers devised to determine location. A GPS receiver would need to be able to
see at least four satellites overhead, know exactly where each is in orbit, and then determine
exactly how far away each one is. Using the distance and location of the four satellites, the
receiver could triangulate its exact position and altitude on earth. It could also derive the exact
time with atomic clock accuracy without needing to have its own atomic clock.

Here on Earth, the arrival of the cheap consumer GPS receive combined with the arrival
of the cheap, pocket cell phone to make it seem like we were living in the future. It is an
amazing pair of capabilities for any human to have.

(triangulate of GPS)

1. ubiquitous (adj): seeming to be everywhere or in several places at the same

time.
2. instantaneous (adj): happening immediately
3. audacious (adj): willing to take risks or to do something shocking
4. constellation (n): a group of stars that forms a shape in the sky and has a name.
5. unattended (adj): without the owner present, not being watched or cared for.