You're correct Alan. The military version of GPS was working before the civilian version.
Here's a good link...
au.af.mil
Navigation in an austere desert environment is difficult with few visible landmarks and the blowing sand obscuring what roads are visible. Navigation satellites proved indispensable and GPS, in particular, would emerge the big technological winner in the Gulf. In August 1990, GPS had not yet reached operational capacity, in fact it was still two years away, yet the system was employed and performed miraculously. [31] To provide 24-hour worldwide coverage, GPS requires 21 satellites, plus 3 on-orbit spares. When Desert Shield kicked off, just 13 of those 21 were already in orbit, providing 9.5 hours of 2-dimensional service and 8.2 hours of 3-dimensional service a day; only 5% of Air Force aircraft were equipped with GPS receivers. From August to November, Air Force Space Command launched three GPS satellites and repositioned several others to maximize coverage and increase the hours of GPS navigation available, providing nearly round the clock service as indicated by the table above. [32] To further complicate matters, five of the GPS satellites were developmental and, in fact, years past their design lifetimes. Eventually three of these developmental satellites experienced malfunctions and Air Force Space Command satellite controllers used their ingenuity to devise solutions to keep them operating. All these efforts paid off. [33] |
