Regional Jet 200 ER/LR (CRJ200)
Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Private; Flight Crew Multiengine; Flight Crew Commercial
Troubleshooting; Confusion; Communication Breakdown
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural FAR; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
General Flight Cancelled / Delayed
ATC Equipment / Nav Facility / Buildings; Aircraft
All CRJ aircraft were experiencing what I was told was a solar flare causing widespread outages on our company aircraft.  I spoke to Dispatch and Maintenance Control to find out what was going on with the system.  I asked if I should put the aircraft on MX and was told by Maintenance that it was not an airplane problem but a satellite GPS issue.  Dispatch was busy working on our land based navigation flight plan which I requested.  Maintenance and Dispatch both cleared us as airworthy as long as ATC was able to read our transponder with a correct altitude.  We checked in with ATC several times asking for altitude verification.  At no time did we stray of or show any signs of an altitude deviation. We flew safely to our destination.  The next evening after talking to fellow pilots; we thought maybe we could have been not certified for RVSM airspace.  Our filed altitude was FL320 we accepted the clearance but chose to fly at FL300 instead for a smoother ride.  Apparently the GPS outage might have been misdiagnosed by MX Control and Dispatch.  We complied with all navigation and flight rules as per SOP.GPS outage failed identify the problem.  Dispatch; Maintenance; and flight crew worked hard but missed the diagnosis. Continue work as a team to identify solutions.
Pilot was later told by company the issue was caused by a software problem.
CRJ-200 Flying Pilot reported a system wide GPS failure.