Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design
Raytheon Company and Lockheed Martin have successfully completed the first launch readiness exercise for the U.S. Air Force’s next-generation GPS III satellites.
By Inside GNSS
The International Symposium on GPS/GNSS 2012 will take place on October 31, November 1 and November 2 in Xi’an, China.
The conference venue is Tianyu Gloria Grand Hotel Xian.
The event is organized by organized by College of Geology Engineering
and Geomatics, Chang’an University, the International Association of
Chinese Professionals in Global Positioning Systems (CPGPS) and the
National Time Service Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has told those awaiting their slice of the GPS civil program budget that the funds are on the way.
The money, which is supposed to support that portion of the GPS program springing from the needs of civilian users, has been held up for months. In fact, as of late August — with less than 40 days left to go in the fiscal year — the money had not been transferred to either the military’s GPS Directorate or the National Coordination Office (NCO) for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT).
By Dee Ann Divis
SIDEBAR: Genene Fisher’s Compass Points
As Solar Cycle 24 rolls around toward its maximum peak next May, when a hundred or more sunspots may appear during the course of a single day, no single navigator stands at the helm to guide the hundreds of companies, research groups, users, and policy workers through the uncharted realm of spiking solar activity and its inevitable effects on GNSS.
By Inside GNSS
TABLE 1. Spoofer antenna requirements for various hardened GPS signal types
“Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it. And then he feels that perhaps there isn’t.”
– A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh
Is our faith in the integrity and infallibility of the Global Positioning System misplaced or, perhaps, insufficiently grounded?
By Inside GNSS
Nominal architecture of a GPS/Galileo PRS receiverThe United States and the European Union are talking about how U.S. agencies might use the secure signal planned for Galileo to better fulfill their various responsibilities.
By Dee Ann Divis
The nation’s top GPS experts pressed the Air Force this week to turn on the full capability of the L2C civil GPS signal that the military has been broadcasting without a navigation message despite having had signal-equipped satellites on orbit for years.
By Inside GNSS
To help counter pressures from federal budget cutters and wireless advocates searching for more broadband spectrum, the National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) Advisory Board is crafting a study documenting the economic benefits of GPS.
“We have a new assignment . . . to discover and disclose the economic contributions of the Global Positioning System,” Chairman Jim Schlesinger told the board at an August 15, 1012 meeting of the advisory board.
By Dee Ann Divis
Trimble AP20-C GNSS/inertial OEM board with MEMS sensorsTrimble introduced its AP20-C, the latest addition to its AP Series of embedded GNSS-inertial OEM boards, at AUVSI’s Unmanned Systems North America 2012 Conference and Exhibition today (August 7, 2012).
Incorporating a compact, custom-built inertial measurement unit (IMU) based on commercial micro-electromechanical mechnical system (MEMS) sensors, the AP20-C enables system integrators to achieve high-rate position and orientation measurements with exceptional accuracy, according to the company.
By Inside GNSS
A congressional committee overseeing activities at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) appears poised to push the agency into a more substantive role in overseeing the use of drones in the United States — a move that could force DHS to move more forcefully to protect GPS users from spoofing.
The Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigation and Management within the House Homeland Security Committee is looking to DHS to manage the civil use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones.
By Dee Ann Divis
Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC-BY-SA 3.0Both Congress and the Pentagon are putting money on the table to bridge the gap created by delays in the development of the new GPS ground system.
As Inside GNSS first reported earlier this year the Next Generation Operational Control System, or OCX, is running roughly two years behind schedule. It had been expected to be delivered in 2015, however, General William L. Shelton, the commander of Air Force Space Command, said this spring that OCX would be delayed until 2016 or 2017.
By Inside GNSS
Members of Congress — who have not finished next year’s appropriations, face half a dozen major tax and program fixes set to expire, and have their own re-elections to worry about — must quickly decide how to handle a tsunami of federal budget cuts that experts say could sweep the economy back into recession.
By Dee Ann Divis
Return to main article: "Drones to the Rescue!"
By Inside GNSS
