Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design
Another month is slipping away with no sign of the Request for Proposals (RFP) for the multi-billion dollar GPS III contract.
By Inside GNSS
Shanghai, China-based ComNav Technology Ltd. announced this week that it has successfully been tracking and analyzing the BD-3 satellite signals to bring better high-precision positioning services in the near future.
By Inside GNSS
Q: What is navigation message authentication?
A: As of today, all open civil GNSS signals are transmitted in the clear, conforming to interface specifications that are fully available in the public domain. Receivers will accept any input that conforms to the specifications and treat it as if it came from a GNSS satellite. Combined with the extremely low power levels of GNSS signals this makes it almost trivially simple to spoof a GNSS receiver.
By Inside GNSS
The Air Force is scouring the landscape for its next round of receiver technology now that the first increment of its military receiver development program is moving into a deeper testing phase.
By Dee Ann Divis
Phil Falcone’s Harbinger Capital is seeking $2 billion in damages for "massive fraud" alleging that Apollo Global Management and others sold it on a plan to launch a terrestrial broadband network while concealing test results showing the network would cause crippling GPS interference and be unlikely to be approved. Assertions
By Inside GNSS
An additional delay in release of the GPS III RFP emerged just as federal watchdogs released a new report detailing the challenges Air Fore managers will face in keeping all the components of the modernization program on track.
The long-expected report from the Government Accountability Office looks at the overall effort to update GPS including developing a new ground system, more capable receiver cards for military equipment and new satellites to sustain and improve the constellation.
By Inside GNSS
Senate lawmakers have introduced a bi-partisan bill giving the Department of Transportation (DoT) responsibility for launching a GPS timing backup and a two-year deadline to get it up and running.
By Inside GNSS
Big news came out of Washington, D.C. earlier this week regarding BeiDou and GPS as the United States and China have negotiated compatible signal characteristics that will both protect and enhance service for users of the U.S. Global Positioning System (GPS) and the equivalent Chinese system.
By Inside GNSS
A highly anticipated presentation by Ligado Networks to the nation’s leading satellite navigation experts took an unexpected turn when the company said it could not provide essential network information because it was looking to the government for technical direction and its business plans were still in flux.
By Dee Ann Divis
The GPS III SV03 fully assembled. Photo courtesy of Lockheed Martin.The U.S. Air Force’s third GPS III satellite in production flow at Lockheed Martin’s advanced satellite manufacturing facility in Denver is now fully integrated into a complete space vehicle.
GPS III Space Vehicle 03 (GPS III SV03) followed the first two GPS III satellites on a streamlined assembly and test production line. Technicians successfully integrated the satellite’s major components – its system module, navigation payload and propulsion core – into one fully-assembled space vehicle on August 14.
By Inside GNSS
Air Force Space Command announced Wednesday it will begin the next phase of its plan to buy another 22 GPS III satellites in two weeks.
The November 22 posting on Fed Biz Opps (fbo.gov) said the highly anticipated Request for Proposals (RFP) would be released on or about December 7. The contract for the new space vehicles is "planned as a single, predominantly Fixed Price Incentive-type contract awarded via full and open competition for production of 22 GPS III SVs."
By Inside GNSS
The Global Positioning Systems Directorate, which is poised to launch its procurement of another 22 GPS III satellites, has given its next tranche of spacecraft a name.
"We are officially calling this GPS IIIF," Col. Gerry Gleckel, the Directorate’s deputy director, told the November meeting of the National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) Advisory Board. "Just as there was a IIF that was the follow-on for the GPS II’s, this is the follow-on for the GPS III."
By Dee Ann Divis
