- published: 25 Jul 2013
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The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a space-based satellite navigation system that provides location and time information in all weather, anywhere on or near the Earth, where there is an unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites. It is maintained by the United States government and is freely accessible to anyone with a GPS receiver.
The GPS program provides critical capabilities to military, civil and commercial users around the world. In addition, GPS is the backbone for modernizing the global air traffic system.
The GPS project was developed in 1973 to overcome the limitations of previous navigation systems, integrating ideas from several predecessors, including a number of classified engineering design studies from the 1960s. GPS was created and realized by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and was originally run with 24 satellites. It became fully operational in 1994.
Advances in technology and new demands on the existing system have now led to efforts to modernize the GPS system and implement the next generation of GPS III satellites and Next Generation Operational Control System (OCX). Announcements from the Vice President and the White House in 1998 initiated these changes. In 2000, U.S. Congress authorized the modernization effort, referred to as GPS III.
Omid Safi is Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he specializes on Islamic mysticism (Sufism), contemporary Islamic thought and medieval Islamic history. He has served on the board of the Pluralism project at Harvard University and is the co-chair of the steering committee for the Study of Islam at the American Academy of Religion.
Professor Safi is recognized as a leader of the progressive Muslim debate. Professor Safi's book Progressive Muslims (2003) contains a diverse collection of essays by and about "progressive" Muslims. Professor Safi was one of the co-founders of the Progressive Muslim Union (PMU-NA). He resigned from PMU in 2005, but he continues to support progressive interpretations of Islam outside of PMU.