Military projects are infamous for delays and cost overruns. Ditto for just about everything we put into space. Combine the two in the form of military space programs and you would presumably have a recipe for disaster. So it’s no surprise to learn that various military satellite programs have been plagued with problems, many of which have been detailed in a report by the Government Accountability Office. For most of us, the programs in question are pretty well abstracted from our day-to-day experience, but one of them has found its way into our lives: the Global Positioning System. Has the Department of Defense’s problems put our gadgets at risk? The answer depends on how you define “risk.”

The GAO is a nonpartisan office that performs critical analyses of government programs, providing a sanity check on federal spending and management. In a report released on Wednesday, the GAO tackled the items the military puts in orbit and did not hold back on the criticism; the report is titled “DOD Faces Substantial Challenges in Developing New Space Systems,” and those substantial challenges are described in substantial detail.

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