"Before GPS became an everyday utility, it was a hard mathematical problem.
In the 1950s–70s, Gladys West, a mathematician at the U.S. Naval Surface Warfare Center in Dahlgren, Virginia, worked on one of the most difficult challenges in satellite navigation: accurately modeling the Earth itself.
Modern GPS accuracy depends on:
• Precise satellite ephemerides
• Accurate gravitational field modeling
• Correct Earth reference frames
West’s work directly advanced all three.
Her contributions weren’t widely recognized at the time. In fact, it wasn’t until 2018 that she was inducted into the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Pioneers Hall of Fame—decades after GPS reshaped global navigation, logistics, finance, defense, and mobile computing...
Before GPS could tell us where we are, someone had to define what the Earth actually looks like—mathematically…”
#Engineering #GPS #Geodesy #STEM #TechHistory #WomenInTech #DataScience #Infrastructure #WomenInGeoSpatial
H/T Evan Kirstel