Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design
The European Space Agency’s annual navigation summer school offers students from around the world a chance for a thorough grounding in satellite navigation theory and practice with lecturers who are leaders in the field.
It will take place this year at Schatzalp Snow and Mountain Resort in Davos, Switzerland from Monday, July 15 through Thursday, July 25.
View a 360-degree pan of the summer view from the hotel.
By Inside GNSS
Xinping Guo, president and chairman, Beijing UniStrongAlthough not on the scale or at the strategic level of China National Offshore Oil Corporation’s takeover of Canada’s Nexen Inc., the recent acquisition of the Precise Products business of Hemisphere GPS by Beijing UniStrong Science & Technology Co. Ltd. marks a notable achievement in the GNSS world — the acquisition of a North American manufacturer with core GNSS receiver intellectual property by a Chinese enterprise.
By Inside GNSS
In 1997, AT&T’s Telstar 401 satellite failed, probably due to magnetic stormsThe annual Space Weather Workshop will take place on April 16-19 2013 at Millennium Harvest House Hotel in Boulder, Colorado. Registration opens on February 15.
Sunday, March 31 is the registration and abstract submission deadline.
This meeting will bring together customers, forecasters, vendors, and researchers of space weather information.
By Inside GNSS
Spectracom has announced the upgrade capability of its GNSS simulators to China’s BeiDou system.
The Spectracom GSG Series 5 and Series 6 GNSS simulators, released last year, are designed to be field upgradeable to simulate current and future GNSS constellations.
The recent release of the Beidou ICD specification has enabled Spectracom to ensure that its GSG Series 5 and Series 6 equipment will be able to simulate these satellites with a simple field-upgradeable firmware update.
By Inside GNSS
Boeing engineers with GPS Block IIF on production line. Boeing photoThe U.S. Air Force has awarded The Boeing Company a $51 million to continue modernizing the GPS satellite constellation for up to five more years. The contract covers GPS IIF satellite shipment to the launch site in Florida, pre-launch preparation, post-launch checkout, handover, and on-orbit support. It has an initial one-year term with four one-year options.
By Inside GNSS
The U.S. Air Force GPS Directorate at Los Angeles Air Force Base, Califorinia, has awarded Lockheed Martin Space System Company a $62-million firm-fixed-price contract for GPS III Space Vehicles (SVs) 5 and 6 to be completed by June 30, 2017.
Funded under the federal Fiscal Year 2013 budget and announced February 8, construction will take place at the company’s facilities in Newtown, Pennsylvnia.
By Inside GNSS
The European Council heads of states meeting ended today (February 8, 2013) without making further cuts in the proposed budget for Europe’s GNSS programs.
By Inside GNSS
[Updated February 13, 2013] The GPS industry has formed a new trade association called the GPS Innovation Alliance that will work to educate policy makers and the public about the GPS system and protect the interests of the hundreds of organizations and users that rely upon the constellation, according to sources familiar with the new group.
By Inside GNSS
[Updated February 4, 2013] Hemisphere GPS Inc. moved closer to a final exit from the OEM GNSS space yesterday (January 31, 2013) by signing a definitive agreement to sell the business assets associated with its non-agricultural operations to the Canadian subsidiary of Beijing UniStrong Science & Technology Co. Ltd., which will operate under the name The cash sale price was $14.96 million.
By Inside GNSS
MEP Dominique Riquet: “We will not say yes to a budget that cripples our space programs.” Peter Gutierrez photo.Although they use a different vocabulary than their U.S. counterparts, European political leaders say that jobs would be the victims at the bottom of their fiscal cliff.
In his keynote speech to the 5th Space Conference on European Space Policy (subtitled “A Global Tool for Global Challenge” held this week in Brussels, European Commission (EC) Vice-President Antonio Tajani underlined the important role of space for restoring economic growth and employment.
By Inside GNSS
A recently announced deal between the United States and the United Kingdom to revoke the UK’s surprise patents on a key GPS technology has a glaring omission: Intentionally left out of the agreement are patents on the European Union’s version of the technology, a signal structure important to enabling Europe’s Galileo system to work seamlessly with America’s GPS constellation.
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. TIMING IS EVERYTHING
Washington, D.C.
Chris Rizos, University of New South WalesGNSS is in a class of its own and the positioning/navigation/timing (PNT) technology of choice for most applications. Why wouldn’t we always use it?
It is affordable, it is a mature technology with many form factors, and its level of performance spans several orders of magnitude — millimeters to meters. There are a bewildering number of permutations of user equipment, augmentation solutions, processing algorithms, and operational procedures to choose from.
However. . . .
By Inside GNSS
