Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design
A series of GNSS tutorials and seminars will be held on Monday, September 21 and Tuesday, September 22, before the Institute of Navigation conference, ION GNSS 2009.
NavTechGPS will offer full and half day sessions at the Hyatt Regency Hotel. The full list will be available spring 2009. For the list of tutorials offered at the 2008 ION GNSS, go to the website below, or call the company for information.
By Inside GNSS
INTERGEO is a massive annual conference and trade show held in different cities in Germany each year. It covers geodesy, geoinformation and land management, particularly for the municipal IT sector.
The theme is "Knowledge and Action for Planet Earth."It will be held at Karlsruhe Trade Fair and Exhibition Center (Messe Karlsruhe) from September 22-24, 2009.
This year, it will also be a forum for ten start-up companies and the Open Source Park, highlighting open source GIS software innovations.
By Inside GNSS
Edward M. MorrisEdward M. Morris, formerly executive director for the U.S. Office of Space Commercialization, Department of Commerce, has joined ITT Space Systems Division (SSD) as executive director of strategic business development.
In his new position, Morris will be responsible for strategic program and business development of GPS navigation systems and additional space-related capabilities.
By Glen Gibbons
William J. Lynn III(Updated Jan.26) President Barack Obama’s nomination of William J. Lynn III, a senior vice-president at Raytheon Corporation, for deputy secretary of defense and his granting Lynn a waiver from the new administration’s own rules on former lobbyists has provoked considerable criticism from some quarters.
As the number two official in the Department of Defense (DoD), Lynn would report directly to Robert Gates, the current secretary of defense who has continued in that position in the new administration, the only holdover from ex-President Bush’s cabinet. Gates has come out strongly in support of Lynn, saying that he requested the waiver from the president.
Among other responsibilities, the deputy secretary serves as the co-chair of
the Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) Executive
Committee (ExCom). Lynn would succeed Gordon England, who has paid a lot of attention to GPS during his term in office and enhanced the role of the PNT ExCom as an arbiter and advocate for the GPS program throughout the federal government.
PCTEL, Inc., announced today (January 5) that it has acquired Wi-Sys Communications Inc., an Ottawa, Ontario, Canada–based company that specializes in GPS antenna and receiver technology. PCTEL will pay $2.1 million for Wi-Sys and plans to fully integrate the latter company’s operations into its Antenna Products Group (APG).
By Glen Gibbons.jpg)
Juliana P. Blackwell (NOAA photo)Juliana P. Blackwell has taken up responsibilities as the new director of the National Geodetic Survey (NGS), where she will oversee the nation’s spatial reference system.
Blackwell takes up the post after serving for the past three years as chief of the NGS Observation and Analysis Division. She is the first woman to head the nation’s oldest federal science agency, established by President Thomas Jefferson in 1807 as the Survey of the Coast.
By Glen Gibbons
The space agency of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) has awarded IFEN GmbH a contract to upgrade the signal at the Galileo Test and Development Environment (GATE) in Berchtesgaden, Germany.
By Glen Gibbons
Applanix Corporation has launched the POSPac MMS (Mobile Mapping Suite) 5.2, the latest release of its GNSS-aided inertial post-processing software for mobile mapping and surveying applications in multiple environments.
Applanix has announced that its POS AV products now support on-board OmniSTAR XP real-time differential GPS corrections using a purpose-built GNSS+L-band aircraft antenna and an embedded BD960 GNSS receiver.
By Glen Gibbons
Canadian GNSS manufacturer Baseband Technologies, Inc., has launched a “Build Your Own GPS Contest,” inviting would-be designers to submit brief written ideas for applications of the company’s software-based GPS receiver technologies.
Contest entrants write 500-word descriptions of an original proposal, suggestion, or hypothetical project may include images that help illustrate their concept. The deadline for entries is March 15, 2009.
By Glen Gibbons
Proton with three GLONASS-MsThe Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) successfully launched a Proton-M rocket and three GLONASS-M satellites at 10:53 a.m. (GMT) on December 25 from the Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan.
The spacecraft were placed into orbital plane 1 on the GLONASS constellation, where they will occupy slots 2, 3, and 8, according to the Roscosmos Information-Analytical Center.
By Glen Gibbons
Representatives from the world’s GNSS system and augmentation providers spent a sun-laden week in Pasadena, California, recently, advancing aspirations for their separate enterprises while refining the basis for compatibility and interoperability among them.
By Glen Gibbons
Günter HeinThe European Space Agency (ESA) has appointed Prof. Dr. Günter Hein to serve as Head of Galileo Operations and Evolution with duties in Noordwijk, Netherlands, and Paris, France.
With an initial four-year term beginning December 1, Hein will report directly to René Oosterlinck, ESA’s director of the Galileo program and navigation-related activities (D/GAL).
By Glen Gibbons
NovAtel has announced its new SMART-AG antenna, an L1 GPS + GLONASS receiver plus antenna system housed in a single, low profile, rugged enclosure, designed for manual guidance and auto steer installations.
SMART-AG features 14 GPS L1 channels, 12 GLONASS L1 channels, and two additional channels for satellite-based augmentation systems (SBAS) as well as two NMEA 0183 compatible RS-232 serial ports, an NMEA2000 compatible CAN port, plus built-in mounting magnets.
By Inside GNSS
