Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design
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
Equations 3, 4 & 5Working Papers explore the technical and scientific themes that underpin GNSS programs and applications. This regular column is coordinated by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Günter Hein, head of Europe’s Galileo Operations and Evolution.
By Inside GNSS
FIGURE 1: Proposal to have a single chip GNSS receiver with additional pins to allow for the inclusion of an additional radioQ: What will limit the spread of multi-frequency GNSS receivers into the mass market?
A: To set the scene, we need to define our terms of reference. By multi-frequency we mean receivers that operate with navigation signals in more than just the standard upper L-band from about 1560–1610 MHz where we find GPS L1, Galileo E1, Compass B1, and GLONASS L1. The obvious additional frequency is the lower L-band, from about 1170 to 1300 MHz, where again the same four constellations have signals.
By Inside GNSS
The whole GNSS world should have a warm spot in its heart for centripetal forces.
After all, a centripetal force — in this case, gravity — is what keeps planets in rotation around our Sun and satellites, around the Earth.
Centrifugal force, of course, is what throws us off a merry-go-round or carousel. Centripetal force is what keeps us on board.
For those on a merry-go-round, the centripetal force is not gravity, but rather the tensile strength of our arms pulling us toward the center of rotation, at right angles to the motion of our seats.
By Inside GNSS
Peter GutierrezGalileo promoters have always tended to try to link the program to new jobs and economic growth, arguing that once Europe’s global satnav system is up and running, new services will be possible and opportunities for EU companies will abound.
Such arguments needed to be made, to bolster the chronically tenuous political support Galileo has garnered from the European Union (EU) powers-that-be and the chronic lack of faith among just about everybody in Europe’s ability to actually make the system fly.
By Peter Gutierrez
Navigation users may benefit from GPS modernization sooner than expected thanks to an apparent shift in the schedule of the modernized GPS ground control segment still under development.
The change means that full operational implementation of the new signals will come earlier in the delayed modernization of the operational control Segment (OCS).
By Dee Ann Divis
The world’s four GNSS programs aren’t exactly a classical quartet, weaving Mozart stanzas in disciplined execution.
By Inside GNSS
