Selective Availability is switched off
The United States discontinued the intentional degradation of the civil GPS signal, improving typical civil positioning accuracy by roughly an order of magnitude overnight. It is arguably the single most economically consequential decision ever taken about a space system, and it involved no launch and no hardware: an entire class of consumer and commercial applications — in-car navigation, precision agriculture, location-based services, vehicle telematics — became viable the following morning at zero marginal cost to anybody.
Historical — it happened, and the record is settled.
Subjects
- GPS (Navstar Global Positioning System) · technology system · not located
- Global navigation satellite systems · technology system · not located
- Upstream and downstream in space accounting · concept · not located
Evidence
Partly verified — Core facts are sourced; some optional detail is deliberately absent.
GPS.gov — official US government information about the Global Positioning System
Supports the GPS milestone dates (first Block I launch 1978, full operational capability 1995, Selective Availability discontinued 2000) and the standing policy that the civil GPS signal is provided worldwide free of direct user charge. V55 verification basis: gps.gov was not retrievable in this session; dates are stated from author knowledge and require confirmation.
United States government, National Coordination Office for Space-Based PNT · Partly verified
GPS.gov, official US government GPS programme information service
Recorded on GPS (Navstar Global Positioning System)
- The first Navstar GPS satellite launches
- GPS reaches full operational capability
- Selective Availability is switched off
- The United States opens the Landsat archive at no charge
- A GPS ground-system error disrupts timing receivers worldwide
- Galileo declares initial services
- BeiDou-3 completes deployment and enters global service
Related
Related because they share a subject in the Atlas — never because the text looks similar.
- BeiDou-3 completes deployment and enters global service · 2020
- Galileo declares initial services · 2016-12-15
- A GPS ground-system error disrupts timing receivers worldwide · 2016-01-26
- The United States opens the Landsat archive at no charge · 2008
- GPS reaches full operational capability · 1995-04-27
- The first Navstar GPS satellite launches · 1978-02-22