Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design
Cumbria, UK – Wikimedia Commons imageEven as the United States tries to decide whether to make good on a commitment last February to implement enhanced Loran (eLoran), agencies and private companies in the United Kingdom are demonstrating leadership in the field of modernized positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) services.
By Glen Gibbons
The GPS Wing has completed an integrated baseline review of the GPS IIIA program, the first major milestone for the $1.4 billion development and production contract for which Lockheed Martin serves as the prime contractor.
The IIIA contract, awarded earlier this year, provides for development and production of the first two GPS IIIA satellites with an initial launch set for 2014. The IBR paves the way for the establishment of an integrated cost, schedule, and technical baseline for the program.
By Glen Gibbons
Blaupunkt, a leading supplier of automotive systems, has signed a “frame” agreement with u-blox to supply GPS and Galileo receiver technology for navigation, driver-assistance, and related in-vehicle systems.
By Glen Gibbons
Following in the footsteps of the recent update of the GPS SPS Performance Standard, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued a performance standard for the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS).
By Glen Gibbons
In fall of 2009, the U.S. Air Force will begin broadcasting a transitional civil navigation (CNAV) message on the GPS L2 civil signal (L2C) now being transmitted on the modernized Block IIR (IIR-M) satellites. Currently, L2C is being broadcast as a dataless sequence without modulation.
By Glen Gibbons
Two new GPS modules based on the award-winning u-blox 5 engine and the NEO form factor — the NEO5D and NEO5G — have been announced by the Thalwil, Switzerland–based company.
By Glen Gibbons
Combined GPS + Galileo constellation. Image source: Nottingham Scientific Ltd., UKRepresentatives of the United States and the European Community (EC) meeting October 23 in Washington, D.C., reaffirmed their commitment to the 2004 cooperation agreement on Galileo and GPS in the first plenary session convened under the agreement.
By Glen Gibbons
NOAA’s National Geodetic Survey (NGS) has recently added 43 GPS tracking sites into the Continuously Operating Reference Station (CORS) network overseen by the federal agency.
By Glen Gibbons
A new GPS Standard Positioning Service Performance Specification (SPS PS) — the first new version since 2001 — brings the level of expected GPS service closer to real-world expectations, although still with conservative margins.
By Glen Gibbons
Baseband Technologies, of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, has announced its GPS/PC Jr, a real-time software GPS receiver IP solution.
By Glen Gibbons
u-blox AG has selected the NavX-NCS, a multi-constellation and multi-frequency GNSS RF navigation constellation simulator from IFEN GmbH, as the Galileo reference for its receiver development and testing.
By Glen Gibbons
The 746th Test Squadron (746 TS) will conduct its sixth JAMFEST, an innovative GPS jamming exercise at White Sands Missile Range (WSMR), New Mexico, in mid-January, 2009 — a rescheduling of the event that had been planned to take place next month.
JAMFEST programs are aimed at providing low-cost, realistic, GPS jamming scenarios for testing GPS-based navigation systems, as well as training personnel in unique GPS denied environments.
By Glen Gibbons
After a series of rescheduled launch dates, U.S. Air Force (USAF) officials have placed the final two GPS Block IIR-M satellites on “indefinite” status, pending the replacement of ordnance timers used in the Delta II launcher.
In a response to inquiries from Inside GNSS, spokespersons for the GPS Wing at the Space and Missile Systems Center, Los Angeles Air Force Base, and Launch and Range Space Wing said that “based on the parts production and qualification schedule, we project the GPS IIR launches will occur in Spring and Summer 2009.”
By Glen Gibbons
