GPS wasn’t “made” by one person; it was created by the U.S. military, with key contributions from several engineers and scientists, especially in the 1960s and 1970s.

Quick Scoop: Who Made GPS?

  • GPS was developed by the U.S. Department of Defense as a military navigation system called NAVSTAR GPS in the early 1970s.
  • It grew out of earlier Cold War–era satellite navigation experiments and radar work starting in the late 1950s and 1960s.
  • Civilian use (the GPS in your phone and car) came later, after the U.S. government decided to open the system to the public in the 1980s and 1990s.

The Main People Behind GPS

When people ask “who made GPS,” most historians point to a small group of pioneers rather than a single inventor.

  • Ivan Getting
    • American physicist and engineer, co‑founder and first president of The Aerospace Corporation.
* Pushed the concept of using satellites as “lighthouses in the sky” for precise global navigation in the early 1960s.
  • Bradford (Brad) Parkinson
    • Air Force colonel and engineer often called the “Father of GPS.”
* Led the NAVSTAR GPS program for the U.S. Air Force starting in 1973 and turned the ideas into a working, global system.
  • Roger Easton
    • Naval Research Laboratory engineer behind the earlier Timation satellite navigation program.
* Helped design satellites and timing methods that became core pieces of GPS and is sometimes described as a principal inventor of GPS.

In 2003, Ivan Getting and Brad Parkinson received the Draper Prize for their central roles in making GPS a practical reality.

How GPS Turned From Military Tool To Everyday Tech

  • 1973: U.S. Department of Defense officially launches the NAVSTAR GPS project to build a 24‑satellite navigation system.
  • 1978: First experimental GPS satellites are launched to test whether the system can locate positions accurately from space.
  • 1990s: GPS becomes fully operational and proves its value in conflicts like Desert Storm as a navigation and weapon‑guidance tool.
  • Civilian opening: After high‑profile aviation incidents, the U.S. government announces that civilian aircraft (and eventually everyone) will be able to use GPS signals once the system is fully available.

So if you’re looking for a one‑line answer to “who made GPS”: it was built by the U.S. Department of Defense, with crucial work by Ivan Getting, Bradford Parkinson, Roger Easton, and their teams over several decades.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.