Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design
Russia successfully launched three modernized GLONASS (GLONASS-M) satellites from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on October 26, a day later than planned due to a Kazakh national holiday. The Proton-K rocket, equipped with a Block DM upper stage and carrying three Uragan-M (GLONASS-M No. 18, 19, 20) satellites, lifted off at 11:35 Moscow time.
By Glen Gibbons
Russia’s GLONASS-MInvestigation into a Proton-M rocket failure in September, which appeared to threaten the schedule for continued rebuilding of the GLONASS constellation, has cleared the launcher and Baikonur facility for renewed activity, including a scheduled October 25 launch of three GLONASS-M satellites.
By Glen Gibbons
Swedish technology group Hexagon AB, which acquired Leica Geosystems in 2005, launched its tender offer to acquire all the issued and outstanding common shares of NovAtel Inc., a Calgary, Alberta, Canada–based developer and manufacturer of OEM GNSS and related products, at a price per share of US$50 cash.
By Glen Gibbons
Trimble has introduced a new, real-time kinematic (RTK) compact GNSS card — the Trimble BD960 — for high-precision guidance and control applications, such as unmanned vehicles and port and terminal equipment automation.
By Glen Gibbons
GLONASS has gotten “preliminary approval” to add code division multiple access (CDMA) signals to future satellites.
Since its initiation in the early 1980s, the Russian GNSS system has employed frequency division multiple access (FDMA) techniques in which the same code is used for the signals broadcast by the system, with individual spacecraft being distinguished from one another by a specific frequency allocation. Russia would almost certainly continue broadcasting FDMA signals on existing frequencies.
By Glen Gibbons
NovAtel Inc. has acquired privately held antenna manufacturer Antcom Corporation (Antcom) for $5 million in cash and an additional $1 million in cash subject to Antcom’s achievement of certain financial targets for the calendar year ended December 31, 2007.
By Glen Gibbons
The September 6 crash of a Russian Proton-M rocket carrying a Japanese telecommunications satellite (JCSAT 11) has injected an element of uncertainty into plans for completing the GLONASS constellation.
Russia’s Baikonur cosmodrome automatically suspended all Proton rocket flights, pending an investigation, after the failure of the rocket, which crashed in the steppes of Kazakhstan just over two minutes after lift-off. Russia rents the space facility from Kazakhstan, a former republic in the USSR.
By Inside GNSS
Calgary, Alberta, Canada’s NovAtel Inc. offers a new real-time kinematic (RTK) positioning solution, known as AdVance RTK, designed to enhance the precision and performance of the company’s OEMV family of GNSS receiver boards.
By Inside GNSS
BlueTooth technology provider CSR, of Cambridge, United Kingdom, has acquired NordNav Technologies AB, of Sweden, and Cambridge Positioning Systems Ltd. (CPS) of also of Cambridge, UK. Taken together, the acquisitions will allow the company to provide software-based low-cost GPS suitable for mass-market mobile phones and Personal Navigation Devices (PNDs).
By Inside GNSS
Russia is showing ever-stronger signs of a serious intention of not merely restoring its GNSS system, GLONASS, but of turning it into a true dual-use system with a presence in civil and commercial markets.
By Inside GNSS
Shah Capital Partners, a private equity firm focusing on technology, will acquire GNSS receiver manufacturer Thales Navigation from the Thales Group, of Paris, France.
By Inside GNSS
An ad hoc working group has begun sorting through issues surrounding the recent formation of the International Committee on GNSS (ICG).
By Inside GNSS
Russian officials are working to develop a plan that will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin’s directive to have the full GLONASS constellation in place by 2009 instead of 2011.
By Inside GNSS
