Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design
Igor Stojkovic is the principal search and rescue engineer on the Galileo program in ESA, responsible for design and development of the SAR/Galileo component of the MEOSAR System.
By Inside GNSS
Aviation officials are looking at combining data from the Air Force’s planned GPS ground system with services from other monitoring systems — or even relying on other systems entirely — to save money on monitoring the GPS civil signals.
By Inside GNSS
In this article, we will take a look at the various GNSS signals from the perspective of their cost-benefit tradeoffs. First, we’ll look at the evolution of consumer GPS architecture to date — where acquisition speed and sensitivity have been the main drivers of receiver architecture. That architecture has evolved rapidly to take full advantage of the characteristics of the GPS C/A code.
By Inside GNSS
ESA Galileo IOV Test campaign authors, from left: Jörg Hahn, Stefano Binda, Edward Breeuwer, Roberto Prieto-Cerdeira, Marco Falcone, Alexander Mudrak, Gustavo Lopez- Risueño, Francisco Javier Gonzalez Martinez, and Daniel Blonski.The objective of the IOV phase was to launch the first four operational Galileo satellites and to deploy the first version of a completely new ground segment. During this phase, the European Space Agency (ESA) needed to validate — in the operational environment — all space, ground, and user components and their interfaces, prior to full system deployment. With the assistance of industry partners, ESA had to analyze the performance of the Galileo system and its components with the objective to refine the full operational capability (FOC) system.
By Inside GNSS
Unmanned aerial vehicles or UAVs comprise a category of aircraft that fly without a human operator onboard. They are more popularly referred to by the misleading moniker “drones,” which masks the wide variety in their design and capability.
By Inside GNSS
The Air Force is slowing GPS modernization and dropping part of the funding for dual launch of satellites, said defense officials describing the President’s Fiscal Year 2015 (FY15) budget on Wednesday (March 5, 2014).
Air Force Undersecretary Eric Fanning said the Air Force would continue to “honor our investments and obligations” regarding the Global Positioning System but would “reprofile” the GPS III program so that it meets constellation sustainment demands.
By Inside GNSS
Message Type 30: satellite clock data, and corrections for ionospheric and group delay. From IS–GPS–200GIn a Federal Register notice issued today (March 5, 2014), the U.S. Department of Transportation (DoT) invited public comments on U.S. Air Force plans to implement preoperational L2C and L5 civil navigation (CNAV) messages on GPS Block IIR-M and IIF satellites next month.
By Inside GNSS
Modifications in the battery charging protocol of on-orbit GPS satellites are expected to substantially extend the mission life of the spacecraft — a particularly timely development as technical and financial difficulties have raised doubts about keeping the system’s next-generation Block III satellites on schedule for launch readiness.
By Inside GNSS
Sabine Dannelke, GSA Administrative Board chairperson. Inside GNSS photo by Peter Gutierrez Road transport has always been a key sector for European GNSS, but safety- and security-related applications bring special challenges along with the opportunities. European Union (EU) officials speaking at a conference in Brussels last week explained why.
“Road transport is largest GNSS market opportunity,” said Gian-Gherardo Calini, head of market development at the European GNSS Agency (GSA). “This is 46.2 percent of the current GNSS market. Road transport is the key market.”
By Inside GNSS
Lawmakers overseeing the Coast Guard approved language this week that would stop the agency from dismantling facilities needed for eLoran, a proposed system that has gained wide support as a backup in case GPS signals are jammed, blocked, spoofed, or otherwise rendered unusable.
In “markups” or adjustments to language in the FY 2015 Coast Guard authorization bill, a House transportation subcommittee proposes to halt the tearing down of stations in the Coast Guard’s old Loran-C navigation system, which was turned off in 2010.
By Inside GNSS
Anthony Foxx, U.S. Secretary of TransportationThe U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DoT) National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced today (February 3, 2014) that it will begin taking steps to enable vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication technology for light vehicles.
This technology would improve safety by allowing vehicles to "talk" to each other and ultimately avoid many crashes altogether by exchanging basic safety data, such as speed and position, 10 times per second.
By Inside GNSS
The fifth GPS Block IIF satellites is scheduled for launch from Cape Canaveral on February 20 after concerns regarding a 2012 launch anomaly led the Air Force to scrub a planned launch last fall. A Delta IV M+ will carry the spacecraft into orbit.
Additional GPS IIF launches this year are tentatively set for May (Delta IV M+) and July (Atlas V rocket). The last GPS launch (GPS IIF-4) took place on May 13, 2013.
The GPS program sustained a cut of more than six percent from the levels in the president’s proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2014 (FY14), increasing the likelihood that the Next Generation Operational Control System (OCX) will be delayed and putting pressure on budgets in future years to make up for cuts to modernization efforts.
By Inside GNSS
