From identifying Columbia crash to West Nile, Trimble GPS at work

WESTMINSTER — When the space shuttle Columbia unexpectedly exploded over Texas at the beginning of February, Trimble used Global Positioning System technology to help NASA unravel the mystery behind what went wrong.

The GPS technology, which is based on a constellation of 24 satellites orbiting the Earth at a very high altitude, helped NASA identify when and where pieces of the Columbia crash fell as well as help tell investigators what the actual piece was.

NASA was able to identify the latitude and longitude of where the parts landed, then put that information into its computers, which provided a simulation of how…