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Solar storms and GPS backups

Anyone who has done anything with computer systems knows the importance of regular backups.

Just as electronic devices can perform mathematical marvels in microseconds, so they can also turn valuable data to dust in the same timeframe, if and when something goes wrong.

The hi-tech user who skips the important process of performing regular backups and having spare hardware "ready and waiting" for "the inevitable" will almost certainly pay the price somewhere along the road.

Which is why I was gobsmacked to read this morning, that the Galileo system looks as if it's about to fail through lack of funding and other issues.

For those who don't know, Galileo is a GPS alternative officially called the "European Global Navigation Satellite System".

Whereas the GPS system we all know and love is operated by the US and was originally designed for strictly military purposes, Galileo has been touted as the European Union's alternative -- effectively ensuring that NATO nations had their own system, even if the US one was unavailable (for technical or political reasons).

Unfortunately, Galileo has been plagued by many of the same factors that have been endemic to the EU and to date, only four of the planned 30 satellites have been launched.

Right now, the EU has huge financial problems and budget talks are presently underway which could see the whole Galileo system axed in the name of cost-saving.

Opponents of the system are claiming that it is folly to duplicate the USA's GPS system and a waste of scarce EU funds to do so. However, just this week, a number of newspapers have been carrying reports that suggest that the GPS network would be extremely vulnerable to damage during the next solar maximum (due in the next few years).

What if a critical number of GPS satellites were "taken out" by a huge CME?

Where's the backup?

There is of course GLONASS, the Russian equivalent of GPS -- but remember that this is entirely under the control of Russia and if the West lost its GPS system while Russia still had GLONASS, the resulting imbalance of "military advantage" could be very dangerous.

Fortunately, this BBC article tends to paint a more tempered view of the effects that a huge CME might have on the existing GPS network -- but then again, who knows for sure?

The one thing we don't want to hear is "what do you mean we don't have a backup?"

Just like mobile phones, GPS technology has become ubiquitous and an important part of our every-day lives. Just how would we cope if the GPS network was knocked offline and there was no backup?

I can see the flood of cheap (and now useless) NavMan and TomTom units flooding Trademe -- but what other obvious fallout would there be?

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