America is upgrading GPS to catch up with rivals

Photograph: Courtesy Lockheed Martin

Oct 29th 2025|5 min read

THE TROUBLE with first-mover advantage is that it devalues quickly. Once the hard work of inventing a technology has been done, others are free to copy and improve it. Take the Global Positioning System (GPS). Designed for America’s armed forces in the 1970s, made available to civilians during the 1980s and declared fully operational in 1993, GPS was revolutionary: anyone with a receiver and a clear view of the sky could work out exactly where on Earth they were standing.