Timeline milestone
The United States commits GPS to civilian aviation
From How GPS Became Invisible Infrastructure: Satellites, Smartphones and Precise Time
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Policy
The United States commits GPS to civilian aviation
After Korean Air Lines Flight 007 was shot down, President Ronald Reagan announced that GPS would be made available for civilian use when operational. Civilian signals later remained intentionally degraded for years.
Korean Air Lines Flight 007 strayed off course into Soviet airspace and was shot down, killing everyone aboard. The tragedy traced back to a basic navigation error that better positioning technology could have prevented. In response, President Reagan announced that once GPS became fully operational, its signal would be made available to civilian aircraft worldwide, free of charge, specifically to prevent similar navigation disasters. That commitment came with a catch that wouldn't become public knowledge for years: the U.S. military planned to deliberately scramble the civilian signal's accuracy, a policy called Selective Availability, reserving the most precise positioning for its own systems.
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