Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design
The 26th European Frequency and Time Forum will take place at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden on April 24, 25 and 26, 2012. Tutorials will be offered on April 23.
Group technical tours to the National Metrology Institute at SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden and Onsala Space Observatory will be arranged for April 27.
By Inside GNSS
Austria Center ViennaThe EGU General Assembly 2012 will be held at the Austria Center Vienna from April 22 to April 27. The official language is English and scientists from all countries are welcome.
The EGU is a professional society and publisher of peer-reviewed, mainly open access, journals for those working in the geosciences, planetary and space sciences. The annual meeting regularly attracts over 10 thousand scientists and students from nearly 100 countries.
By Inside GNSS
The European Space Agency’s annual navigation summer school offers students from around the world a chance for a thorough grounding in satellite navigation theory and practice. It will take place this year at two locations in France, from Monday, July 16 through Thursday, July 26.
The Institut Superieur de l’Aeronautique et de l’Espace(ISAE) in Toulouse hosts the first week. The second week will take place in the Hotel Spa at the historic Abbaye des Capucins in nearby Montauban.
The school is open to graduate students (more than three years of study), doctoral candidates and postdoctoral researchers and engineers and professionals who are less than 35 years old.
The two-week event will cover the design and development of satnav systems, ranging from the satellites in space to supporting mission segments, the receivers relied on by service end-users and the development of new applications.
The program features lectures by leaders in the field, a project competition, technical visits and a one-day visit to Cité de l’Espace theme park in Toulouse.
Lecture topics include:
Fundamental principles of GNSS
Integrity and performance augmentation
sensor fusion and indoor positioning
applications for transportation, environment, leisure and other services.
ESA Education in Navigation program is organising the event together with ISAE and the Universitaet der Bundeswehr Muenchen (ISTA) in Germany, in cooperation with Stanford University in the United States and Technical University Graz in Austria, with the support of the French space agency CNES and the City of Toulouse.
For more information, including how to apply, go to the website below or contact Ms. Antje Tucci.
By Inside GNSS
Soyuz VS01, the first Soyuz flight from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, on its launch pad at Europe’s Spaceport before October 21, 2011, launch. ESA photo – S. Corvaja 2011Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) has delivered the first of 14 full operational capability (FOC) payloads for Galileo to prime contractor OHB System AG.
First launch of Galileo FOC spacecraft from Europe’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, is currently expected to take place in the second quarter of 2013: two space vehicles (SVs) on board a Russian Soyuz rocket.
By Inside GNSS
SpectraTime has announced it has been awarded a €1-million contract to improve rubidium atomic frequency standards (RAFS) as part of the European Space Agency (ESA) GNSS Evolution Program.
SpectraTime is the existing supplier of atomic clocks for the Galileo satellites and other GNSS systems, including China’s Compass/BeiDou-2 program.
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
1. DEAD IN THE WATER
San Francisco, California and Washington D.C., USA
Galileo IOT L-Band antenna at Redu Center in Belgium (ESA photo)The European GNSS program expects to gain an additional €7 billion (US$9.1 billion) budget for 2014–2020 to support Galileo and the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS), a satellite-based augmentation system that currently provides differential corrections to GPS signals, according to Paul Flament, Galileo and EGNOS program manager for the European Commission. He spoke at the 2012 Munich Satellite Navigation Summit that ended on March 15.
By Inside GNSS
Rohde & Schwarz SMBV100A vector signal generator/GNSS simulatorRohde & Schwarz, based in Munich, Germany, has launched two extensions to the GNSS simulator in its SMBV100A vector signal generator: GLONASS and GPS P-code capability.
The SMBV100A already had the capability to generate a range of GPS and Galileo civil signals as well as wireless standards, including GSM/EDGE, 3GPP with HSPA, LTE, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi.
By Inside GNSS
Galileo by Irina of Romania[Updated March 27] We see lots of graphs, schemata, renderings and photographic images of the GNSS satellites and constellations. Perhaps it’s time to rest the eyes with imaginative images of space and satellites through the eyes of children.
Over a number of years, up to 30 of Europe’s Galileo navigation satellites are expected to reach orbit and each of them will be named after a child from one of the 27 European Union countries.
By Inside GNSS
OPERA neutrino experiment at the Gran Sasso laboratory in Italy. (Photo: LNGS)[Updated March 26, 2012] Six experts debatd the exciting – and controversial – claims of faster-than-light neutrinos from physicists who used the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s largest particle accelerator, in a European experiment that called into question the basics of modern physics.
By Inside GNSS
The 2012 European Satellite Navigation Competition will accept your idea, innovative service or business plan for GNSS applications beginning April 1. Submit your idea online at www.galileo-masters.eu through June 30.
This year, the competition is working with 20 partner regions in Europe, Brazil, the Middle East and North Africa. You do not have to be a resident of the partner regions in order to enter, however you must anticipate basing your business in one of them.
By Inside GNSS
Whenever the annual Munich Satellite Navigation Summit came around, some GNSS program was usually in the ascendant, while others had reversed direction or found themselves treading water. This year, perhaps for the first time, all four major providers had reason to celebrate as the event’s organizers cut the cake at their 10th birthday party.
By Inside GNSS
The University Park Hotel under construction next to the East Midlands Conference CentreThe British Royal Institute of Navigation has given prospective authors a May 4 deadline for abstracts for its annual conference, NAV12. The theme this year is "GNSS and Beyond."
Authors have a broad choice of navigation and technology topics from GNSS, eLoran and integrated systems technology to satellite navigation vulnerabilities to jamming and space weather to low-cost consumer apps design.
By Inside GNSS
