The first was launched recently and 15 more are anticipated by the end of 2006.

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8051

Stronger signals and more accurate clock are a few of the improvements. (Accurate to within 8 nanoseconds per day).
Also going from analog to digital. Uh, is a nanosecond quicker than the blink of an eye? <img src="/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

Any idea how long it's going to be before new civilian units are available to take advantage of the new features? Other than the stronger signal, we can use that now of course.

Thanks for the link! That's good news.

Interesting to note the article mentioned Europe is developing their own satellite navigation network. All of a sudden the U.S. GPS system isn't the only game in town.

I remember reading about a controversy between US GPS signals and the new Galileo frequencies. Has that been resolved?

As I recall, the controversy was over the fact that Galileo (meant solely for civillian/commercial use) operated on a frequency that overlapped the military GPS channels. In a military engagement, the US armed forces would want to deny the enemy any use of global positioning by jamming the civillian GPS channel. Unfortunately, trying to jam Galileo's signal would also mean jamming its own military channels as well. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong about this.

Anyway, I'm still waiting for the ability to find a lost contact lens on the floor with global positioning. "It's 25.4329832 cm to your left...no, your OTHER left..." <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> (Dumb Matrix reference)

"U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and Loyola de Palacio, the European Commission's Vice-President with particular responsibility for transportation and energy matters, will sign an agreement on GPS/Galileo cooperation June 26 at the U.S.-European Union summit in Ireland. ...."

The rest of the article is at http://www.gpsworld.com/gpsworld/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=101129

Actually, Russia has had their own system for several years. Known as GLONASS. Ours is NAVSTAR.
Read on:

http://www.leeselect.com/magellan/general_info.htm

The way I read it is that they are now civilian friendly as well as militarily. Go to Google and type in "BOEING GPS SATELLITES" and you will get a whole "PLETHORA" of information. Check that word, plethora. Sounds like something Chris would use to confuse the rest of us illiterates. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

I believe I read somewhere in all that stuff I Googled that one of the things these new sats do is correct or improve the jamming problem.

Plethora is a good word. It is my verbal quiver next to head scrathers like cornicoppia and surrounded.

*new recruit* They've got us surrounded!
*old sargent* "Yeah, they can't get away from us now!"

Thank God they've finally improved the clock accuracy from 11 nanoseconds down to 8. I was getting plenty tired of showing up at appointments 3 nanoseconds late! <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />