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A federal watchdog agency is warning Congress that the GPS system may begin to suffer failures and outages starting next year and blamed the Air Force’s mismanagement and and underinvestment for it.

“If the Air Force does not meet its schedule goals for development of GPS IIIA satellites, there will be an increased likelihood that in 2010, as old satellites begin to fail, the overall GPS constellation will fall below the number of satellites required to provide the level of GPS service that the U.S. government commits to.”  said the Government Accountability Office in their report.

The GAO considers the system to be essential to national security, which only heightens concern about its stability and overall condition.  GPS is also widely used by individuals and businesses.  The first replacement satellite is set to launch in November.  Russia, China, and India also have GPS systems and the EU is set to roll out theirs later this year.  If the Air Force continues to mismanage and underinvest in our system, it gives these other nations the chance to rival the U.S. in space, something that was thought could never happen.

I have GPS built into my phone and it’s pretty handy to have.  If there was a blackout or mass failure of our GPS system, would there be widespread chaos or would people simply have to learn how to use maps again?  The consequences for our military and security of course would be much more severe.

Read [PCWorld]