The Global Positioning System (GPS) was made available to the general public in the early 1990s. Today the system continues to improve with new technology and applications. It has greatly improved the way we know where we are and what is going on around the world. In addition it has also made weather tracking much easier for researchers, government agencies, private industries, and homeowners.
The GPS launched aboard the space shuttle and went to work helping to determine the precise location and position of the International Space Station (ISS). Today it is used for a variety of weather and climate forecasting purposes. By monitoring the Earth every few minutes it is possible to determine the tilt, attitude, rotation, deformation, altitude, and location of the planet or satellites. These data are sent back to earth by a constellation of low-earth orbiting satellites. The data is returned to earth through a transmission’s long antenna which is located on the earth or in space and is able to pick up the signals.
The Global Positioning System (GPS) was originally developed and controlled by the U.S. Department of Defense. Today the system is operated by a consortium of universities, businesses, the Department of Transportation, the Air Force, and NASA. The first GPS units were made to help ships pinpoint their position at sea. Now a single GPS system can monitor weather forecasts, track your vehicle, locate a person, or locate a product on the shelf. This type of precise weather forecasts would not be possible without the global positioning system.
Today a variety of technologies have been added to GPS to improve its accuracy and performance. One such technology is the synchronous position locking technique which automatically adjusts itself to the ever-changing position of the Earth and its satellites.. This is done by a combination of timing signals sent from a ground-based monitoring station and from the GPS itself. Another method used is the synchronous weather forecasts technique wherein weather conditions and locations are precisely determined and monitored to provide users with accurate and timely weather reports. It goes satellites in the form of a GPS signal, which is constantly being re-solicited by various satellites and recovered by a variety of sensors.
Once this signal comes back from earth, a computer algorithm separates this data into two types: precipitation and surface temperature. Precipitation is the amount of precipitation. On the other hand, the surface temperature is the surface temperature of the Earth. By comparing the precipitation with the surface temperature, the algorithm is able to determine the humidity and the cloudiness of the clouds. These three measurements are then compared to the operational plans developed by meteorologists, who use them to determine the quantity and quality of rain that falls on a given day.
A third type of data collection instrument is the magnetometer, which uses the earth’s magnetic field to determine the presence of magnetic anomalies near the surface of the spacecraft. This method is used for the purpose of providing the astronauts with an estimate of the amount of deformation of the interior of the spacecraft. Although the three main instruments listed above are included in the Soyuz TMA (Techiterranean Air Transport Manned Mission), there are additional ones that were specifically added by the Russian Federation, namely the Raduga MPS (asma gas scanning) and the Raduga SSS (as sounding scan). This shows that besides the Soyuz TMA, other countries have their own specialized versions of space missions to gather data for space exploration.