A method and apparatus for collecting subframes of navigation data of satellites are disclosed. In the method of the present invention, the subframe is divided into several sub-units, each sub-units includes one or more words. When a receiver receives a subframe with a subframe ID, the respective required sub-units of the subframe are checked. A dummy sub-unit is not necessary to be considered. Valid ones of the required sub-units are collected. If not all the required sub-units of the subframe have been collected, the absent sub-units are to be collected when the next subframe with the same subframe ID is received. Some protection schemes can be applied to raise the reliability of such sub-unit collection. Especially when the signal is weak or unstable, the present invention may significantly improve the TTFF (Time To First Fix) performance of the receiver.