The invention of GPS by Ivan Getting and Bradford Parkinson is a modern miracle, and you can read about it right here. The invention timeline begins in the early 20th century.
Fast forward to 1960 and Ivan founded his own company that was named ?The Aerospace Corporation? in California. The mission of this company was much the same as Raytheon, and Getting worked on missile and space launch systems, as well as anti-aircraft technology for the Department of Defense.
Now if we follow this invention timeline back to 1957, we can join Bradford Parkinson when he joined the Air Force. Parkinson had been born in Wisconsin in 1935 and earned degrees at the Naval Academy, MIT, and Stanford University.
Shortly after joining the Air Force, he was given the responsibility of directing the Department of Astronautics and Computer Science at the Air Force Academy.
In 1972, Parkinson was appointed to run the GPS program for the Department of Defense, which was based on the original ideas of Ivan Getting. The invention of GPS was nearing reality.
The idea of GPS that Getting had originally envisioned was to have signals transmitted by specific satellites that serve as reference points as they orbit the earth in precisely defined paths. The GPS receivers would take those signals from the satellites, and calculate positions based on the arrival time of the signals from the different satellites.
By 1978 the NAVSTAR GPS system was functional, and it was accurate to within 3 meters! The invention of GPS was so amazing that Parkinson was honored with the Defense Department Superior Performance Award for his achievement. He then retired from the Air Force as a Colonel that year.
Over the next 20 years, the GPS technology has continued to improve, and has become accurate to within one meter for most consumer products. Some commercial GPS systems achieve sub-centimeter accuracy. By the year 2000, the invention of GPS had become affordable enough to be integrated into consumer products such as cars, boats and even handheld GPS units.
Ivan Getting and Bradford Parkinson were honored in 2003 with the Charles Stark Draper Prize of $500,000 for the invention of GPS technology.