GPS & Relativity (orders of magnitude)

Interactive simulation — adjust parameters and watch the visualization update in real time.

Near GPS-like MEO values (~20 200 km, ~3.9 km/s), the gravitational gain and special-relativistic loss partially cancel; the net effect is on the order of tens of microseconds per day — the same order as the rough sum of the two terms shown in the sidebar.

How it works

Navigation needs nanosecond timing; ignoring relativity would accumulate large range errors — engineers apply both corrections routinely.