There are three segments of GPS:-
1. The space segments : The satellites of GPS are launched and positioned at an altitude of approximately 20200 km which is almost more than three times of the earth’s radius. The space segment consists of a constellation of 24 functioning GPs satellites located in 6 orbital plane with 4 satellites in each orbital plane. The time for the satellite to complete one revolution around the earth is 11 hrs and 58 minutes.
2. The control segment: The control segment consists of facilities necessary for satellites especially healthy monitoring, telemetry, tracking command and control clock error ‘ computation of satellites.
There are 5 GPS stations spread over the earths surface they are –
- Hawaii
- Colorado spring
- Ascension Island
- Diego Garcia
- Kwajalein.
3. The user segment: It is a total user and supplier community, both civilian and military. The user segment consists of all earth – based GPS receivers. Receivers very greatly in size and complexity, through the basic design in rather simple. The space and control segments are largely transparent to the operations of navigation functions.
