Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design
Another month is slipping away with no sign of the Request for Proposals (RFP) for the multi-billion dollar GPS III contract.
By Inside GNSS
The Air Force is scouring the landscape for its next round of receiver technology now that the first increment of its military receiver development program is moving into a deeper testing phase.
By Dee Ann Divis
Phil Falcone’s Harbinger Capital is seeking $2 billion in damages for "massive fraud" alleging that Apollo Global Management and others sold it on a plan to launch a terrestrial broadband network while concealing test results showing the network would cause crippling GPS interference and be unlikely to be approved. Assertions
By Inside GNSS
An additional delay in release of the GPS III RFP emerged just as federal watchdogs released a new report detailing the challenges Air Fore managers will face in keeping all the components of the modernization program on track.
The long-expected report from the Government Accountability Office looks at the overall effort to update GPS including developing a new ground system, more capable receiver cards for military equipment and new satellites to sustain and improve the constellation.
By Inside GNSS
Senate lawmakers have introduced a bi-partisan bill giving the Department of Transportation (DoT) responsibility for launching a GPS timing backup and a two-year deadline to get it up and running.
By Inside GNSS
Close to 300 users attended the 1st Galileo User Assembly, held in Madrid, Spain on November 28-29. The users, along with several expert presenters, came together for the first EGNSS User Consultation Platform to share their experience, discuss their needs and provide feedback on Galileo performance, one year after the launch of Galileo Initial Services.
By Inside GNSS
The Army is kicking off a wide-ranging, five-year research effort to develop new position, navigation and timing (PNT) technologies for battlefield use.
The goal is to overcome technical barriers in a wide range of areas and military officials are offering to fund multiple, and even multi-phase, cost-plus-fixed-fee (CPFF) efforts to do that. The work may range from studies and analysis to development work that results in the production of a prototype-style deliverable or breadboard and/or a demonstration.
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
1. Mapping Air Traffic, Rainy Seasons, and More
Sahel, Africa
A highly anticipated presentation by Ligado Networks to the nation’s leading satellite navigation experts took an unexpected turn when the company said it could not provide essential network information because it was looking to the government for technical direction and its business plans were still in flux.
By Dee Ann Divis
Air Force Space Command announced Wednesday it will begin the next phase of its plan to buy another 22 GPS III satellites in two weeks.
The November 22 posting on Fed Biz Opps (fbo.gov) said the highly anticipated Request for Proposals (RFP) would be released on or about December 7. The contract for the new space vehicles is "planned as a single, predominantly Fixed Price Incentive-type contract awarded via full and open competition for production of 22 GPS III SVs."
By Inside GNSS
The Global Positioning Systems Directorate, which is poised to launch its procurement of another 22 GPS III satellites, has given its next tranche of spacecraft a name.
"We are officially calling this GPS IIIF," Col. Gerry Gleckel, the Directorate’s deputy director, told the November meeting of the National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) Advisory Board. "Just as there was a IIF that was the follow-on for the GPS II’s, this is the follow-on for the GPS III."
By Dee Ann Divis
Example of IEEE 1588 Timing Synchronization Module in Centralized Architecture. Image courtesy of Microsemi.
