Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design
If the readership of insidegnss.com news is any indication, 2011 was the year of LightSquared.
Articles about the would-be wireless broadband company that wants FCC approval to set up a terrestrial network transmitting on frequencies next door to GPS and other GNSS L1 signals garnered the most page views on our website for 6 out of 12 months.
By Inside GNSS
Raven Industries Electronic Systems Division has announced a new distributor relationship that will offer the company’s differential GPS (DGPS) products through NavtechGPS, of Springfield, Virginia.
Effective December 15, 2011, NavtechGPS began receiving and processing U.S. orders for Raven StarLink DGPS products, including line amplifiers, Raven Link timing & synchronization system, down/up converters, splitters, and antennas.
By Inside GNSS
LightSquared today (December 21, 2011) asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to confirm the company’s right to use spectrum licensed to it and that commercial GPS manufacturers have no right to interference protection from LightSquared’s proposed wireless broadband network.
By Inside GNSS
Sh*****@*****ng.jpg‘/>Air Force Space Commander Gen. William Shelton at House Armed Services subcommittee hearingTests of LightSquared’s proposed wireless broadband transmissions in the lower LightSquared band (1526–1536 MHz) caused harmful interference to a majority of personal/general navigation GPS receivers.
By Inside GNSS
GPS III pathfinder satellite testbed. Lockheed Martin photoThe Lockheed Martin team developing the U.S. Air Force’s next-generation GPS satellites (GPS Block III) has delivered the program’s pathfinder spacecraft to the company’s Denver, Colorado–area facility.
The program remains on schedule for a 2014 launch of the first Block III space vehicle (SV).
By Inside GNSS
A GPS app on a Japanese smartphone. The GPS Council there told the FCC that any signal degradation could jeopardize the Global Positioning System’s standing as a global standard.LightSquared has dropped, for now, efforts to expand its wireless broadband plans to markets in other countries, Inside GNSS has learned.
The Virginia firm was working this summer on proposals to the International Telecommunication Union, including one aimed at addressing compatibility issues between ground stations or “complementary ground components” of mobile satellite services and other frequency-using services.
By Inside GNSS
[Updated November 25 2011] For those wondering what to do on Black Friday …
In another holiday special, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has announced creation of a public web portal for documents related to the LightSquared/GPS interference issue that will , in the agency’s words, “provide ready access to publicly available documents and other responsive documents not otherwise exempt from release under the FOIA [ Freedom of Information Act].”
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. Portland, Oregon and Los Angeles, California USA
TWINS!
FIGURES 1 & 2: True3D Volumetric HUD components and operation (left), Comparison of True3D HUD user view with other types of nav aids (right)Return to main article: "True3D HUD Wins Global SatNav Competition"
Many technologies are created before their best applications are even thought about. This leads to a business phenomenon known as “technology push” in contrast to “consumer pull.” The True3D Volumetric HUD technology did not share this path.
By Inside GNSS
OPERA neutrino detector in Gran Sasso, Italy. INFN photoNo sooner had GPS positioning helped validate key aspects of Einstein’s general theory of relativity in the Gravity Probe-B program than GPS timing has been cited as helping bring his special theory of relativity into doubt.
At issue is the so-called OPERA (Oscillation Project with Emulsion-tRacking Apparatus) experiment, inaugurated in 2006 with the main goal of studying the rare transformation (oscillation) of muon neutrinos into tau neutrinos.
By Inside GNSS
Please.
Please. Please. Please.
Can we please talk about something besides LightSquared?
Not yet? You mean, they are still here?
And we have so many other GNSS-related topics that deserve comment:
Some peculiar cuts in civil GPS funds and GPS III budgets being proposed by congressional committees.
A re-examination — aka analysis of alternatives — of GPS and PNT options in general. Space weather and an impending solar max. Warrantless GPS-aided tracking before the Supreme Court.
By Inside GNSS
With more testing on the horizon and a potentially alarming homeland security report about to be released, LightSquared’s efforts to begin work on its proposed wireless broadband service are stuck in the procedural mud.
The delays, which are never good for a commercial company, are piling up just as the firm’s coffers are thinning and need to be replenished with a new round of fund raising.
By Dee Ann Divis
Working Papers explore the technical and scientific themes that underpin GNSS programs and applications. This regular column is coordinated by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Günter Hein, head of Europe’s Galileo Operations and Evolution.
