Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design
GRACE satellites. NASA illustrationNASA scientists, using GPS data collected from the space agency’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite, have concluded that shifts in geographic polar motion stem from changes in terrestrial water storage (TWS) and the global cryosphere (the frozen water part of the Earth system).
By Inside GNSS
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
With little fanfare or prior announcement, China launched another second-generation BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) satellite last week, the 22nd in the nation’s GNSS program.
The satellite launched from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in the southwestern province of Sichuan on March 29 local time on board a Long March-3A carrier rocket.
An inclined geosynchronous orbit (IGSO) spacecraft designated Beidou-2 IGSO-6, it is expected to operate at an altitude of about 22,000 miles (35,400 kilometers) with an inclination of about 55 degrees.
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
Prof. Dr. Günter HeinA global navigation satellite system seems like such solid thing, like the pyramids, perhaps, or a mountain. Permanent, fixed, immutable.
Nor is this surprising. After all, GNSS distinguishes itself from many other technologies of the moment by its grounding in a large and widespread infrastructure: a master control station, launch facilities, far-flung monitoring stations, the space segment with dozens of massive satellites that can operate 20 years or more as did a recently retired GPS Block IIA spacecraft.
By Günter W. Hein
The legal and regulatory framework of the Russian Federation covers not only the GLONASS system, but the country’s overall positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) system as well.
The term PNT is a synonym for navigation activities as defined in the Federal Law on Navigation Activities. The PNT system in the Russian Federation is defined as the combination of administrative and technical means that provide spatial and time data to all user groups, with GLONASS as a key element.
By Ingo Baumann
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
At the 2015 symposiumThe German Institute of Navigation’s (DGON) 2016 symposium on inertial sensors and systems, ISS, and gyro technology will take place in Tulla Hall at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) on September 20 and 21.
As modern systems for navigation, localization and guidance are increasingly making use of supporting data from non-inertial sensors, the conference particularly appreciates papers on hybrid systems, those that fuse inertial with GNSS, visual, infrared, radar or other sensors.
By Inside GNSS
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
