Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design
Raytheon Corporation announced today (April 12, 2016) that the company successfully passed the first formal qualification test milestone for the Next Generation GPS Operational Control System (OCX) on March 4.
By Inside GNSS
The Air Force and the Army are looking for companies interested in helping advance a new generation of technology for GPS satellites, ground stations, and receivers.
Both military services have issued requests for information (RFIs), formal announcements through the Federal Business Opportunities website <FBO.gov> to gain insight into current industry capabilities and interest, as part of programs aimed at boosting overall positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) performance and dealing with issues such as jamming and spoofing.
Air Force Space Commander Gen. John Hyten at subcommittee hearingWhile acknowledging the fury over problems with the new GPS ground system, the head of Air Force Space Command told lawmakers this month that finishing the program with the current contractor was the best way forward.
That contactor, Raytheon, is years behind on the Next Generation Operational Control System (OCX), a project whose price tag may now top $4 billion.
By Inside GNSSAnyone who has sat through several iterations of a slide presentation by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) can’t help but wonder if there isn’t a better way to do things.
As speakers flip through an exhaustively vetted series of PowerPoint slides, squeezing out a new bullet point or two from one version to the next six months later, watching paint dry seems like a more productive — and briefer — use of one’s time. The agency sometimes brings a whole new meaning to the concept of geological time.
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
Dangerous Games in Rio, Animal Trackers, Chinese Logistics and The Radiation Club
By Inside GNSS
The satellite-based NextGen program is in trouble — no question about it.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) air traffic modernization effort will likely cost triple its original $40-billion program budget and need an extra decade — until 2035 or beyond — to reach completion, according to 2014 testimony by Department of Transportation (DoT) Inspector General Calvin Scovel.
By Dee Ann Divis
OriginGPS has launched its Multi Micro Spider multi-GNSS module, which features a 5.6 x 5.6-millimeter footprint and 2.65-millimeter height.
Like its predecessor, the Multi Micro Hornet (which measured 10 x 10 x 6.1 millimeters), the ORG4033 uses MediaTek’s MT3333 and is positioned for applications that require minimal power consumption and ultra-small form factors, ranging from wearables to drones. Unlike the Hornet, the Multi Micro Spider supports Europe’s Galileo system as well as GPS, GLONASS, and BeiDou.
By Inside GNSS
As the contractor for the new GPS ground system works its way through a make-or-break 90-day evaluation period, the U.S. Air Force (USAF) is weighing whether it should look at leapfrogging past that program and shifting control of the newest GPS satellites to a new common ground system for Air Force space assets.
The Next-Generation Operational Control System or OCX, currently under development by Raytheon, is essential to integrating the GPS III satellites into the U.S. GNSS constellation and operating them at their full potential.
By Inside GNSS
Harold Martin, director of National Coordination Office for PNT, at Munich SatNav Summit 2016Addressing a long-unfulfilled presidential mandate, the Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) Executive Committee (ExCom) has taken on reponsibility for initiating a process to identify and develop requirements for a complementary national PNT, in effect, a backup system to GPS in case of outages from natural or man-made events.
By Inside GNSS
Representatives of the world’s GNSS providers outlined the current plans and progress of their systems at the 2016 Munich Satellite Navigation Summit in Germany.
BeiDou has entered its transition period from Phase II to Phase III, with test and validation of the next phase with its new signal structures and frequencies taking place through the second half of 2017, said Jun Shen, deputy director for International Research at the China Satellite Navigation Office. In the meantime, “there will be a coexisting of Phase II/III BeiDou signals.
By Inside GNSS
The Agency for Restructuring and Modernization of Agriculture (ARMA), a government organization responsible for the supervision and control of European Union agricultural subsidies in Poland, has purchased 118 Spectra Precision MobileMapper 300 smart antennas.
By Inside GNSS
The civil GPS community is facing a significant federal funding cut in the midst of programmatic shifts and political squalls that make the long-term outlook murkier than usual.
President Obama’s recently released 2017 budget proposal calls for $847.362 million in Department of Defense (DoD) funds but only $10 million in Department of Transportation (DoT) funds to sustain and modernize the civil GPS services, including monitoring of civil GPS signals.
By Inside GNSS
Ligado Networks, the enterprise formerly known as LightSquared, released partial results from their tests of GPS receivers last week, a step one expert suggested might be aimed at easing a political decision to move the project forward before the completion of an ongoing federal interference study.
By Inside GNSS
