Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design
[Updated August 15, 2013] Investors led by Harbinger Capital Partners have filed a $1.9 billion lawsuit against a trio of GPS receiver manufacturers over LightSquared, a now bankrupt firm that still hopes to build a wireless broadband network across the United States.
By Inside GNSS
A series of assertions in a recent Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article regarding putative dissension between the Air Force and Navy over responsibilities for precise timing — a key element in GPS operations — has drawn a pointed rebuttal from the superintendent of the U.S. Naval Observatory (USNO).
By Inside GNSS
USAF Col. Bernie Gruber, GPS Directorate. Air Force photoLast month, USAF Col. Bernard Gruber stepped down after three years of running the Global Positioning Systems Directorate at Los Angeles Air Force Base.
The GPS Directorate, originally established in 1974 as the NAVSTAR GPS Joint Program Office, is responsible for development, acquisition, fielding and sustainment of all GPS space segments: the modernized operational control segment (OCX), the next-generation GPS III satellites, and modernized GPS user equipment (MGUE).
By Inside GNSS
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued restricted category type certificates to a pair of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), a milestone that will lead to the first approved commercial UAS operations later this summer.
Issuing the type certificates is an important step toward the FAA’s goal of integrating UAS into the nation’s airspace. FAA officials announced the action last Friday (July 26, 2013).
By Inside GNSS
Dudley Barnfield, director, Boeing GPS ProgramsDudley Barnfield has joined the Boeing Government Space Systems (GSS) leadership team as director of the GPS programs. He will have oversight for the entire GPS portfolio, which includes the GPS IIF program and alternate architecture initiatives.
By Inside GNSS
In a Tuesday (July 23, 2013) hearing on two fatal school bus/truck collisions, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) recommended adoption of “connected vehicle technology” on all newly manufactured highway vehicles as a way to reduce such accidents.
Such collision-avoidance systems — similar to those used in civil aviation — would typically depend on real-time transmissions of the GNSS-derived locations of nearby vehicles to provide enhanced “situational awareness” to drivers.
By Inside GNSS
The GPS III Non-Flight Satellite Testbed (GNST) completed pathfinding activities at Lockheed Martin’s GPS III Processing Facility outside of Denver prior to it shipping to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Lockheed Martin photo Lockheed Martin has delivered a full-sized, functional prototype of the next generation GPS satellite to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
The GPS III Non-Flight Satellite Testbed (GNST) arrived at the Cape on July 19 where it will be used to test facilities and pre-launch processes in advance of the arrival of the first GPS III flight satellites, which will undergo similar testing. The first flight GPS III satellite is expected to arrive at Cape Canaveral in 2014, ready for launch by the U.S. Air Force in 2015.
By Inside GNSS
Logan Scott, LS ConsultingSometimes GNSS spoofing seems a bit like UFOs: much speculation, occasional alarms at suspected instances, but little real-world evidence of its existence.
As far back as 2001, a U.S. Department of Transportation Volpe Center report suggested that as GPS further penetrates into the civil infrastructure, “it becomes a tempting target that could be exploited by individuals, groups or countries”.
By Inside GNSS
In a part of the world where frustrated drivers will park anywhere, including squarely on a sidewalk, a local newspaper is using location data to shame car owners into shaping up.
The Village, a Russian online publication serving Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kiev; created a free app that notes a badly parked vehicle’s make, color, and license plate information when users snap its picture.
By Dee Ann Divis
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. ASHES & AIRPLANES
Boulder, Colorado USA
Every breath you take . . .
Every move you make
Every step you take
I’ll be watching you
I originally planned on titling this column, “Waiting to Inhale,” recalling these lyrics and an editorial I wrote more than four years ago about my sense of relief at the departure of the second Bush administration.
I called that one, “Waiting to Exhale.”
By Inside GNSS
Federal officials are working to fill a funding shortfall nearly certain to occur next year given that both the House and Senate have cut an already halved budget request for GPS civil funding.
Sources confirm the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Department of Defense (DoD) are in talks about finding money to make up for the dramatic reduction. One source familiar with the situation said the FAA was searching its accounts for resources to address the loss.
By Inside GNSS
A new GPS-based technology designed to warn drivers in time to avoid collisions has anonymizing elements in its design to keep the location of vehicles private, according to the Department of Transportation (DoT).
DoT has focused a lot of effort on reducing motor vehicle accidents — a leading cause of death in the United States. Nearly 34,000 people died in collisions in 2010, the latest year for which data is available, according to the Centers for Disease Control. CDC estimates the lifetime costs of crash-related deaths and injuries in 2005 alone were $70 billion.
By Inside GNSS
