Burklandi Space Maper

[Micrasland]

The Burklandi Space Maper (BSM) is a planned satellite that would provide GPS services, as they are unreliable to help you with directions but to tell where you are we will put warnings on all GPS packing about this fact. The GPS are already made but can't be selled unless this goes ahead.

[Guido Zambelis]

Good luck doing it with just the one satellite

[Joe]

The satellite itself doesn't give directions. They come from the computer inside the navigation system. And you need at least three satellites to give an accurate location. So yours would have to work with satellites belonging to other nations, or you'd have to send up a lot more, because presumably you're not on the equator, so can't have geostationary ones.

[pawelabrams]

Well, first of all, they could launch a geostationary satellite even if they're not on the equator; the second thing is, they don't need one. GPS satellites aren't even geosynchrous. All you need are formulas for positioning the satellites on given time and accurate clocks...(BTW, the best orbit for such satellites may be the Molniya orbit, as Burkland is in the very far North)

[Joe]

But the force of gravity needs to be perpendicular to the direction of the orbit. Which means the satellite must cover an entire circumference of the planet. In a geostationary orbit, the satellite covers that distance over 24 hours, although here it'd be 28 hours

[pawelabrams]

I didn't understand your point, sorry For a GPS-like system you only need a precise formula to compute the position of the satellites and a precise clock to tell the time (so that the current position can be computed). That's all. I hope Wikipedia article on GPS would tell you anything you'll need: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPS