Government Computer News
Solar flare puts GPS off the air
Global Positioning System outage could occur again
Digg
De.licio.us
Slashdot
Technorati
Image: Photo by NASA
We don’t have a good historical basis for predicting what’s going to happen, so we’re concerned. — PAUL KINTNER JR., CORNELL’S GPS LABORATORY
The good news is that the cause was not invading aliens. It was an intense burst of radio energy, called a solar flare, emitting from the sun’s surface. And there’s more good news — although the event temporarily knocked out many GPS receivers, no airplanes fell from the sky, and no ships lost their way at sea.
But the event nonetheless generated concern among scientists. Although they were aware that radio bursts generated by solar flares could affect GPS equipment, they were surprised that this large an event occurred during a period of relatively low solar-flare activity and that its impact was as strong as it was.
Serious business
“It’s more serious than we thought. We didn’t think this was going to happen until the next solar maximum, which is about 2011,” said Paul Kintner Jr., professor of electrical and computer engineering at Cornell University and head of Cornell’s GPS Laboratory. “We’ve been monitoring solar flares for four years. [The Dec. 6 event] suggests that monitoring has been inaccurate. And we don’t have a good historical basis for predicting what’s going to happen, so we’re concerned.”
The radio bursts don’t actually damage equipment but only interfere with transmissions between GPS satellites and receivers. Some GPS equipment may be affected for about 30 minutes, Kintner said, “but that’s really an upper limit.” This means that the risks are greater for some GPS users than for others.
“This past event was sort of two really intense pulses that lasted three to four minutes each, so this is not a major outage if you’re driving a car or hiking,” Kintner said. “It’s really a concern for people who want uninterrupted operation.”
![1105 Government Information Group [valor]](/images/1105logo_website.gif "Government Computer News [valor]")
© 1996-2008 1105 Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
