GPS and Other Satellites

[rcaf_777]

Since Leg delined to start a new thread

There's LOTS of information in there actually.
Quote:
On 13 November 1995, the Soviet Union launched the last of its high-orbiting weather-tracking satellites, named DP 201. With the widening of hostilities, the expected life of such a satellite was less than a few days. Still this device managed to survive longer, dodging even the most adamant attempts to destroy it, for reasons which have never been completely understood.

When the United States employed its orbital ASAT (anti-satellite) network, it had suffered years of battles in Congress and hundreds of budget cuts. Still, what finally was put into space functioned well enough. Most Soviet spy satellites were downed in the first few months of conflict.

Likewise, the USSR also made use of advanced space technology in the downing of most of America's surveillance systems in orbit. The war was a simple one of attrition: one in which neither side had an upper hand or really hoped to win.

Despite all these odds, DP 201 stayed in space, taking its pictures of all the world's weather patterns and trends, dutifully recording all information it was exposed to. It was originally designed to monitor the ozone and jet stream patterns, as well as other wind and weather patterns, but this role was expanded as time passed and more nuclear weapons were launched by both sides. The spread of fallout across the world determined which countries were to survive, and during the peak of the nuclear exchange, DP 201 was hovering over the world tracking the weather patterns.

The satellite would have given the Soviets a strong advantage during reconstruction of their nation if not for a crippling shot by one of the few automated SDI systems still in space.

Where does it say GPS, Ocean Surveillance, Communication or Weather Satellites I only see spy and Surveillance

While this specifically talks about US ASAT weapons and capabilities, is it really inconceivable that the Soviets didn't have something similar

Yes it is and heres why the US was able to test it primary Anti Sat weapon (ASM-135 ASAT) with the downing of P78-1 or Solwind. The Soviet did not such live test its systems and many failed such as 11F19DM Skif-DM/Polyus orbital battle station. Their research was then terminated due failed many results in the late 80's. Soviet did continue research into high-powered gas dynamic lasers and neutral or charged particle beam systems which could blind a satellite but not shoot it down. They also starting developing counter measures to US weapon systems.

There is also the matter of the launch platforms for each weapon systems which require conversion of air superiority fighter.

http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear-weapons/space-security/a-history-of-anti-satellite-programs

Why would both sides be so desperate to recover one downed satellite if ANYONE had anything still up in orbit

Well they only after the data, and its a down enemy Satellite why wouldnt the US want it. Operation Morning Light was a joint Canadian and US operation to recover Kosmos 954

http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb267/11.pdf

It just doesn't make ANY sense for operational satellites to still exist and be available for GPS.

How about they are still operational because priority satellites were one for surveillance and missile launch detection

We also know from the background materials (all versions) that "orbiting space laboratories, are abandoned as the war drags on".

Where does it say Satellites were shot down

Also from the nuclear target lists: "Vandenbelp AFS. CA: Recon satellite launch facilities (1 Mt ground burst)", "Spacefight Center, Cape Canaveral FL: Recon satellite launch facilities (1 MT ground burst)", "Houston, TX: Oil refining and storage facilities (1.5 Mt)", "Plesetsk, RSFSR: Recon satellite launching facilities (1 Mt)", "Leninsk.Tyuralam, KSSR: Recon satellite launching facilities (2 Mt)", and "KapustJn Yar, RSFSR: Secondary satellite launching facilities (500 Kt)". There may be other control and launch sites I don't know about, but how likely is it any would have been missed given the extreme value of satellites

Actually pretty good, as with any target in the Twilight World. The missile target of any location could be spare if the missile targeting said location was destroyed before it launch by a missile targeting said missile location.

As if that isn't enough, and perhaps more relevant to the thread than all the above

Its not enough and the M1A2 is not relevant as this a topics about GPS Satellites not the M1A2 tank

[pmulcahy11b]

Satellites...a person in the T2K timeline would best in forgetting they were ever there. Satellites are at least 50 years in the future of the T2K timeline.

[RN7]

I started a similar thread about two years ago.

http://forum.juhlin.com/showthread.phpt=4207

Although I didn't go into actual anti-satellite warfare during the war or do a list of space launch facilities that were targeted by nuclear weapons.

I do think it is likely that the US and Soviets and others were sending INTEL, communication, GPS and maybe armed satellites into orbit until the nuclear war started in late 1997. I think it also highly feasible that the French were still launching the occasional satellite after that as they survive the war in much better shape than anyone else and their launching site at Kourou in French Guyana is intact.

[Legbreaker]

rcaf_777 I really don't see a need to respond further to your post(s) unless you can come up with something relevant to T2K and use quotes and references to the canon material as I have done.
My position (as with others on this forum) is clear - GPS in particular, and satellites in general, is dead in T2K.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

I said this in the other thread and I'll say it again here because obviously the message was not understood -
GPS satellites specifically (and other satellites in general) need constant ground station monitoring and control. Once the war starts and you lose those personnel and/or ground control stations, the satellites are going to lose timing synchronization and/or the maintenance of their orbit.
It will NOT matter how many satellites are still up there, they won't be in the specific orbits needed or they'll be suffering synchronization problems and all of that will render them useless for navigation.

Typical estimates are that they'll be useful for a few weeks, maybe a month after the loss of ground control stations and within a year or so the entire system will be completely unreliable.

[rcaf_777]

rcaf_777 I really don't see a need to respond further to your post(s) unless you can come up with something relevant to T2K and use quotes and references to the canon material as I have done.
My position (as with others on this forum) is clear - GPS in particular, and satellites in general, is dead in T2K.

Respond or don't, I really don't care I have proved my point and why should quote anything you didn't. And besides Satellite Down is clear enough there are many Satellites in orbit and working fine, and they are people in working control stations on the ground.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Here's a direct quote from the flavour text from Satellite Down, page 4: -

""Gentlemen, your government has a problem, and we are going
to help. In 1995, the Soviet Union launched the last of its
weather-tracking satellites into orbit. It was an 'eye in the sky,'
tracking major storm and global weather patterns, called DP
201. Now, during the height of the war, just about every satellite
on both sides was knocked down or rendered worthless junk.
All but DP 20 1. It just stopped transmitting."

Emphasis mine. That doesn't simply "imply" there are very few satellites left, it states it outright.
Further to that, there's this quote from page 5: -

"DP 201 BACKGROUND
Military intelligence was weakened to the breaking point during the Third World War. With "normal" communication lines nothing more than memories to most individuals, the information on DP 201's tapes is vital to the continuing growth of any nation. To them it is something to barter with for needed food and technology, or something to hold for the sheer power it represents.
Thus the characters should know up front that they will not be alone on this venture, that every nation that can muster the ability will have forces trying to accomplish the very same goals.
The tapes on board the satellite have all of the data needed to determine where there will be rainfall, where crops should be planted, and thus where people should live. The tension that this information can create is the key to the excitement of the scenario. This can be used by the referee to add to the tension of the situation.
The satellite is large, weighing almost 375 kilos. Originally it was designed for a soft ground landing within the Soviet Union. But due to some damage from America's space-born antisatellite system and lack of good ground signal communication, it crashed off the coast of Mexico in the Gulf of California. Tracking plots by the lone functioning radar, though untrustworthy at best, indicate that DP 201 came down just off a small island formerly known as San Jose, some 11 miles off of the Baja Peninsula."

Emphasis mine. Again, this doesn't simply "imply" there's little left in the way of satellite abilities, it pretty much spells it out - the situation is dire and satellites cannot be relied upon any more.
Of course, you can do as you like in your game but Satellite Down is reasonably clear on how GDW saw the situation and simple common sense would tell you that there aren't enough people/equipment/resources left to keep satellites functioning in the manner they were meant to.

[RN7]

Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites in T2K really only apply to the Americans as they are the only ones who have or had an operational GPS satellite network in the 1990's.

The Russian (Soviet) GLONASS network didn't come online until December 1995, although the Soviets may have put up enough satellites before then to establish a network if the USSR hadn't collapsed. To date the Russians have only had a sporadic network as they have had a lot of trouble keeping enough satellites in orbit to make it work.

Europe's Galileo System and China's COMPASS network is not yet operational as of 2016.

[Targan]

I said this in the other thread and I'll say it again here because obviously the message was not understood -
GPS satellites specifically (and other satellites in general) need constant ground station monitoring and control. Once the war starts and you lose those personnel and/or ground control stations, the satellites are going to lose timing synchronization and/or the maintenance of their orbit.
It will NOT matter how many satellites are still up there, they won't be in the specific orbits needed or they'll be suffering synchronization problems and all of that will render them useless for navigation.

Correct. Real-World Relativity: The GPS Navigation System

The combination of these two relativistic effects means that the clocks on-board each satellite should tick faster than identical clocks on the ground by about 38 microseconds per day. This sounds small, but the high-precision required of the GPS system requires nanosecond accuracy, and 38 microseconds is 38,000 nanoseconds. If these effects were not properly taken into account, a navigational fix based on the GPS constellation would be false after only 2 minutes, and errors in global positions would continue to accumulate at a rate of about 10 kilometers each day! The whole system would be utterly worthless for navigation in a very short time.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Sheesh, that means the situation with GPS satellites would be even worse than the info I found!
One day would be enough to make it worthless as a navigational aid so the USA and its allies better remember their map & compass nav skills

[Olefin]

Keep in mind guys that you have to watch out for conflicts in story telling between modules - i.e. the sub that heavily damages the freighter carrying the Cubans home that end up in Grenada is the same one that supposedly was in the hands of the UBF at the same time - the pace of releasing modules meant sometimes they contradicted each other

and keep in mind as to satellites that even with the nukes trikes that were detailed you still have two satellite launch facilities left that are definitely intact

US - Wallops Island Flight Facility has six launch pads for the Scout missile

France - Guiana Space Centre - which is intact and the most likely place for satellites to be launched into orbit

The X-factor is the Kagoshima Space Center - which depends on if you are running version 1 or version 2 of the game - version 1 had the Japanese basically intact while version 2 had them getting nuked - and version 2 had a Challenge magazine adventure set there (Rockets Red Glare)

[StainlessSteelCynic]

You'r right but seriously, during (and more so after) the war, who is going to use the massive quantities of resources needed to launch a rocket when you could better use them for making food, ammo, spare parts, etc. etc.
Then after the satellite is actually in orbit, who's going to commit all the resources to run the ground tracking and control stations to constantly monitor and control it

A little common sense goes a long way, satellites are for countries that are not pulling themselves back from the ruins of an apocalyptic war.

[kato13]

Correct. Real-World Relativity: The GPS Navigation System

When these quotes were posted the programmer in me was thinking, what engineer would allow that. The next paragraph radically changes the context of the quotes as far as this discussion goes.

The engineers who designed the GPS system included these relativistic effects when they designed and deployed the system. For example, to counteract the General Relativistic effect once on orbit, they slowed down the ticking frequency of the atomic clocks before they were launched so that once they were in their proper orbit stations their clocks would appear to tick at the correct rate as compared to the reference atomic clocks at the GPS ground stations. Further, each GPS receiver has built into it a microcomputer that, in addition to performing the calculation of position using 3D trilateration, will also compute any additional special relativistic timing calculations required

Also this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPS_satellite_blocks

The Block IIA satellites were slightly improved versions of the Block II series, designed to provide 180 days of operation without contact from the control segment.

Given how important the GPS system is I could see MILGOV sacrificing quite a bit to make sure they can update them twice a year. Don't know how long they could keep them working but they would sure try.

In my world the GPS system would be some where between useless (If ASATs or EMP were really effective), to only being able to provide accurate time (if say 3 or 4 are alive) , to the least likely option partially functional (with like 8 sats working properly, like during the deployment for "desert shield").

If you say you can only get a link for 4 hours every 4 days that could be a useful plot device. You could even have a few sats giving out erroneous information so if you check during other times you get totally wrong information.

[Olefin]

FYI the Scout is what they launched at Wallops Island and it was about as simple as it gets - basically very old tech - in our timeline they shut it down in 1994 but you could see here that it could remain in service - the question is how many, if any, would be left

France on the other hand may be able to launch satellites very soon after the war, possibly even as early as 2000-2001 - but they may be delayed as well by having to wait for the debris to die down in space

And I don't agree that the GPS network could have been taken out by the ASAT's of the 90's unless you postulate weapons that were a lot more effective than what was being looked at - the GPS satellites are at 12,500 miles - that's a heck of a lot harder to get to than the weather and surveillance satellites that orbit much lower and are thus much easier to knock out

and the communication satellites in geosynchronous orbit would have been very hard targets - not unless the Soviets went up there with something manned or something nuclear

[Olefin]

You'r right but seriously, during (and more so after) the war, who is going to use the massive quantities of resources needed to launch a rocket when you could better use them for making food, ammo, spare parts, etc. etc.
Then after the satellite is actually in orbit, who's going to commit all the resources to run the ground tracking and control stations to constantly monitor and control it

A little common sense goes a long way, satellites are for countries that are not pulling themselves back from the ruins of an apocalyptic war.

You don't really need massive quantities of resources to launch a rocket - the question is what kind of rocket and what payloads is it carrying - and keep in mind that the timeline strongly suggests that the US didn't launch a bunch of their rockets that were in silos and the like - those rockets, at least those still operational, would be perfect to use to get a communications or weather satellite into orbit

any such satellite wouldn't be state of the art of course - but anything they can get to maintain communications or get weather data is better than nothing

even if it was short lived - i.e. like the satellite used in Twilight 2013 to do the "you are on your own" speech - you could see MilGov using something like that to give orders to Korea and the Middle East - even as simple as a recall order or a "you are on your own as to getting home" message - even if all it did was play a recorded encoded or plain language message at intervals that could be picked up by any surviving US units