I was digging around on Lockheed Martin's web-site and found these photos of GPS satellites being assembled. They're about twice as big as I envisioned and for some reason have "giant peppermint sticks" poking out of the top. (directional antennas?)

7 photos 215k ~ 7.8 MB

Awesome pics! I downloaded the hi res and they are printing great on my large format printer.

Those candy canes are an array (OK, TWO arrays) of quadrifilar antennas. Individually they're not directional, but they are phased electronically into a somewhat directional pattern.

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Scott Johnson (ScottJ)

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Originally posted by mudbug65:
They're about twice as big as I envisioned

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I had seen pictures of them in orbit but that didn't give an idea of the size. I assume they are so large because a) they have to have room for 3-4 atomic clocks. b) they have a large supply of fuel for orbit corrections.