Keith MacPherson, Australian chair of the Civil Global Positioning System Service Interface Committee (CGSIC), said that the US authorities would launch the new satellite in May.
According to information on Peterson Air Force Base's Web site, the satellite, known as PRN22, went off the air due to "anomalous conditions on the satellite".
At this stage it is unclear whether the GPS' navigational service has been downgraded significantly since the loss of PRN22.
According to MacPherson, the GPS has remained accurate, but the loss of the satellite had created some "integrity" issues for position data delivered by the service.
However, Tim Hogard, a representative of recreational users of the GPS system, who was present at the Melbourne gathering of the local branch of CGSIC last February, said the loss was affecting the availability of GPS service in Australia.
According to Hogard, US authorities had repositioned five satellites to close gaps in service availability after PRN22 was retired. Hogard said the aim of the exercise was to shorten daily downtime intervals across the regions the satellites serve to a total maximum of around 30 minutes.
MacPherson denies that the satellites have been re-positioned, insisting that the US Department of Defence had given him a written undertaking that the only corrective action it would take would be to launch the new satellite.
However, local companies that rely on the GPS for their operations are reporting difficulties with the service. Some of Patrick General Stevedoring's automated systems rely on the GPS. It is understood that Patricks use the GPS to guide heavy loading equipment for moving containers from ships and around Patrick's facilities.
Spokesperson for Patrick, Felicity Moffat said that the company had been experiencing periods of GPS outage but that the company had many back-up measures in place to cope with them.
Recently, a small number of system administrators using the GPS time coding as an independent chronometer for their system clocks witnessed 30 minutes "drifts" in their system clocks, prompting speculation that Iraqi GPS jamming devices were having an impact on the global GPS. Hogard said it was unlikely that the GPS was behind the inaccuracies as equipment used by Iraq would only work over distances of less than a kilometre in their attempt to confuse GPS guidance systems built into smart weapons.
Spokesperson for the CSIRO, Alan Young, backed the view, saying the organisation's GPS-based radio astronomy clocks hadn't drifted since the war in the Middle East had started.
Maps indicating GPS service reliability and coverage published on Peterson Air Force Base's Web site since the loss of PRN22 and another satellite in February, appear to show a region of degraded service availability stretching along Australia's eastern seaboard from mid-New South Wales to Queensland.
Hogard said receivers linked to network equipment set-up incorrectly may be experiencing more difficulty receiving signals than usual.
Why the hell should American taxpayers have to foot the bill for something that affects YOUR country?
maybe YOU aussies should write us a check or two!