Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design
Last February, Paul Verhoef took up the directorship of ESA’s Galileo Program and Navigation-related Activities, and he hasn’t had time to look back since. The successful launch on May 25 2016 of two more satellites is just one of many milestones stretching ahead of him.
By Inside GNSS
The European GNSS program added two more spacecraft to its constellation this morning (May 24, 2016) with the launch of Galileo satellites 13 and 14. They lifted off together at 08:48 GMT (10:48 CEST, 05:48 local time) atop a Soyuz rocket from French Guiana.
This seventh Galileo launch went by the book: the first three Soyuz stages placed the satellites safely into low orbit, after which their Fregat upper stage hauled them the rest of the way into their target medium-altitude orbit in plane A, slots 2 and 6.
By Inside GNSS
A presentation from the 2015 ESNC AwardsThe 2016 awards for the European Satellite Navigation Competition and Copernicus Masters will be announced and celebrated at a gala ceremony in Madrid, Spain on October 25. The event recognizes the winning applications using the Galileo GNSS, EGNOS augmentation system and Copernicus earth observation system.
By Inside GNSS
ESTEC interiorNAVITEC is an annual navigation conference hosted by the European Space Agency (ESA). This year’s event will take place at ESA’s Space Research and Technology Center (ESTEC) in Noordwijk, Netherlands on December 14, 15 and 16, 2016. The theme is "Navigating the Future of Transportation."
The scope of the workshop includes navigation equipment and techniques, including receivers, payloads, signals, navigation algorithms, signal processing techniques and terrestrial and space GNSS applications.
By Inside GNSS
Carlo des Dorides, GSA Executive DirectorLast October, the European GNSS Agency (GSA) Administrative Board reelected Carlo des Dorides as executive director of the GSA, giving him a second — and final — four-year term in charge of this key agency responsible for supporting the effective operation, maintenance, and security of Europe’s satellite navigation systems. We met with him recently at the GSA office in Prague to learn how he plans to see out his mandate.
By Peter Gutierrez
GNSS signals are vulnerable to interference due to being extremely weak when received on Earth’s surface. Therefore, even a low-power interference signal can easily disrupt the operation of commercial GNSS receivers within a range of several kilometers.
By Inside GNSS
Europe’s 11th and 12th Galileo satellites being prepared for launch in the clean room at Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. Photo: ESA/CNES/Arianespace/Optique Vidéo du CSG/Hrouffie De FrancisciEurope’s latest navigation satellites, launched last December, have been officially commissioned into the Galileo constellation, and are now broadcasting working navigation signals.
Galileos 11 and 12 were launched together on a Soyuz rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana on 17 December.
The satellites’ navigation payloads were submitted to a gamut of tests, centered on the European Space Agency’s Redu center in Belgium, which possesses a 20 meter-diameter antenna to analyze the satellites’ signals in great detail.
By Inside GNSS
The European Satellite Navigation Competition (ESNC) 2016 — this year’s incarnation of the largest international competition for commercial GNSS applications — is once again looking for outstanding ideas and business models. Entries will be accepted from until June 30 at the ESNC website.
Major institutions and regional partners are set to award prizes worth a total of €1 million in more than 25 categories.
By Inside GNSS
The European Union (EU) has reached a deal with the British Ministry of Defense resolving a patent issue that could have limited the adoption of signals from the EU’s Galileo satellite navigation constellation.
"The European Commission [EC] has secured access to UK-owned patents related to Galileo signal in space technologies which will allow for their use by chipset and receiver manufacturers on a royalty free basis," according to a joint UL/EC statement supplied by a spokesperson for the UK’s Defense Science and Technology Laboratory.
By Inside GNSS
One of 12 magnetograms recorded at Greenwich Observatory during the Great Geomagnetic Storm of 1859
1996 soccer game in the Midwest, (Rick Dikeman image)
Nouméa ground station after the flood
A pencil and a coffee cup show the size of NASA’s teeny tiny PhoneSat
Bonus Hotspot: Naro Tartaruga AUV
Pacific lamprey spawning (photo by Jeremy Monroe, Fresh Waters Illustrated)
“Return of the Bucentaurn to the Molo on Ascension Day”, by (Giovanni Antonio Canal) Canaletto
The U.S. Naval Observatory Alternate Master Clock at 2nd Space Operations Squadron, Schriever AFB in Colorado. This photo was taken in January, 2006 during the addition of a leap second. The USNO master clocks control GPS timing. They are accurate to within one second every 20 million years (Satellites are so picky! Humans, on the other hand, just want to know if we’re too late for lunch) USAF photo by A1C Jason Ridder. 
Detail of Compass/ BeiDou2 system diagram
Hotspot 6: Beluga A300 600ST
Dangerous Games in Rio, Animal Trackers, Chinese Logistics and The Radiation Club
By Inside GNSS
Prof. Dr. Günter HeinA global navigation satellite system seems like such solid thing, like the pyramids, perhaps, or a mountain. Permanent, fixed, immutable.
Nor is this surprising. After all, GNSS distinguishes itself from many other technologies of the moment by its grounding in a large and widespread infrastructure: a master control station, launch facilities, far-flung monitoring stations, the space segment with dozens of massive satellites that can operate 20 years or more as did a recently retired GPS Block IIA spacecraft.
By Günter W. Hein
At the 2015 symposiumThe German Institute of Navigation’s (DGON) 2016 symposium on inertial sensors and systems, ISS, and gyro technology will take place in Tulla Hall at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) on September 20 and 21.
As modern systems for navigation, localization and guidance are increasingly making use of supporting data from non-inertial sensors, the conference particularly appreciates papers on hybrid systems, those that fuse inertial with GNSS, visual, infrared, radar or other sensors.
By Inside GNSS
OriginGPS has launched its Multi Micro Spider multi-GNSS module, which features a 5.6 x 5.6-millimeter footprint and 2.65-millimeter height.
Like its predecessor, the Multi Micro Hornet (which measured 10 x 10 x 6.1 millimeters), the ORG4033 uses MediaTek’s MT3333 and is positioned for applications that require minimal power consumption and ultra-small form factors, ranging from wearables to drones. Unlike the Hornet, the Multi Micro Spider supports Europe’s Galileo system as well as GPS, GLONASS, and BeiDou.
By Inside GNSS
