You will hear the terms “GPS” or “GNSS” used. While professionals use the term "GNSS”, "GPS" is widely accepted as a simpler alternative for referring to satellite networks and is what we shall use.

“GNSS” stands for Global Navigation Satellite System (ie. all of the networks) while "GPS" (Global Positioning System) refers specifically to the American satellite network, which, around 15 years ago, was the only satellite system available. Back then, if you received signals from 4 or 5 GPS satellites orbiting the Earth, you were doing ok.

Today there are other GPS type networks that make up the GNSS including: GPS (US), GLONASS (Russia), Galileo (EU), BeiDou (China). This is why we frequently see live satellite counts today of 28 or 32 satellites (which provides much better coverage and accuracy as more satellites = better results).

Using on-board atomic clocks, each satellite continuously broadcasts it’s time and its orbital position from 11k miles up in space.

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