Russia Launches 3 GLONASS-M Satellites

[Updated 03:35 GMT, March 2] Russian Space Forces successfully launched three GLONASS satellites from the Baikonur launch site in Kazakhstan on March 2, at 00:19 Moscow time (22:19 GMT, March 1).

The launch had been postponed from last September after an anomaly was discovered in one of the on-orbit space vehicles (SVs) navigation payload.

IFEN Simulator Receives Galileo ICD Certification

TÜV SÜD, an independent third-party certifier, has awarded IFEN GmbH an official certificate affirming the conformance of IFEN’s NavX-NCS GNSS RF navigation constellation simulator with the Galileo Open Signal Signal-in-Space Interface Control Document (OS SIS ICD).

GLONASS Gets Its Groove Back — 19 Satellites on the Air

[UPDATED Feb. 8, 2010] The Russian GNSS system, GLONASS, has brought its contingent of transmitting satellites back up to 19, as spacecraft launched in December and others off-line for maintenance have returned to healthy status.

Meanwhile,  Voice of Russia, the Russian government's international radio broadcasting service, has reported that a monitoring station is being established at the Russian Antarctic outpost of Bellingshausen to track GLONASS  satellites. The orbital planes in the constellation are oriented so that GLONASS spacecraft pass over higher latitudes in the northern and southern hemispheres than do the other GNSS systems.

Three GLONASS-M Satellites Launched in December, All Operational as of February 1

(UPDATED FEB. 1, 2010) Russia got its GNSS program back on track with the December 14 launch of three modernized GLONASS-M satellites — resuming a schedule interrupted by problems with a navigation payload on an in-orbit spacecraft. A Proton launcher took the trio of satellites into orbit at 1038 GMT (5:38 a.m. EST) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in central Kazakhstan.The first of the new spacecraft began transmitting signals on January 10. Another went live on January 24 and the third was declared operational in a February 1 ITAR-TASS press release. 

Russia Launches Three GLONASS Satellites

Russia got its GNSS program back on track on December 14 with the launch of three modernized GLONASS-M satellites — resuming a schedule interrupted by problems with a navigation payload on an in-orbit spacecraft.

Vehicle Positioning with GNSS — at the Speed of Sound

A team led by led by Seattle, Washington–area aerospace and computer experts is attempting to break the sound barrier to surpass the world land speed record of 763 miles per hour — and they’re using GNSS technology to help them do it.