GPS

April 23, 2012

2012 Space Weather Workshop

Aurora Borealis, 1977, near Anchorage, Alaska from the National Weather Service collection in NOAA’s online photo database

The annual Space Weather Workshop will take place on April 24-27 2012 at the Millennium Hotel in Boulder, Colorado. Registration is now open.

The conference schedule is online here.

Organizers call it the meeting of science, research, applications, operations and users.

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By Inside GNSS
April 21, 2012

IEEE/ ION PLANS 2012: Position Location And Navigation System Conference 2012

PLANS conference venue

This biennial conference and industry exhibition explores the field of navigation—from fundamental research, to applications, to field test results.

It will take place April 24, 25 and 26 at the Marriott Resort and Spa at Grande Dunes in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina USA.

Sponsored by IEEE’s Aerospace and Electronics Systems Society and the Institute of Navigation, participants will learn about sensors, systems, optimal integration of multiple sensors and emerging technologies in navigation.

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By Inside GNSS

Parts Testing Drives Up GPS III Program Costs, Forces Prime to Forego $70 Million Incentive Fee

The core structure of the GPS III Non-Flight Satellite Testbed (GNST) stands vertical in Lockheed Martin’s GPS III Processing Facility. LM photo.

An emphasis on quality assurance in system engineering and components in the first GPS III satellite now under development has driven projected costs up in the program above the budgeted amount, leading the U.S. Air Force to deny a $70 million incentive fee to prime contractor Lockheed Martin.

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By Inside GNSS
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Help DARPA Boldly Go Where No One Has Gone Before

DARPA example of a robot working in a dangerous area

We certainly hope the competitors in DARPA’s Robotics Challenge hardwire Isaac Asimov’s First Law of Robotics into their creations—the one that says don’t harm humans.

Because the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s new contest aims to develop technology that advances robotics to the next level. The level at which robots can do what we do, go where we can’t, and change shape as necessary.

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By Inside GNSS
April 20, 2012

U.S. Satellite Export Policy Report Retains GPS Restrictions

The Global Positioning System and GPS receivers show up several times as items of special concern in a report to Congress submitted Wednesday (April 18, 2012) by the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Department of State. The subject is discussed in an appendix addressing “China’s Space-related Strategic Goals, Capabilities, and Methods for Acquiring Technology.”

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By Inside GNSS
April 19, 2012

ESA International Summer School 2012 on GNSS

The European Space Agency’s annual navigation summer school offers students from around the world a chance for a thorough grounding in satellite navigation theory and practice. It will take place this year at two locations in France, from Monday, July 16 through Thursday, July 26.

The Institut Superieur de l’Aeronautique et de l’Espace(ISAE) in Toulouse hosts the first week. The second week will take place in the Hotel Spa at the historic Abbaye des Capucins in nearby Montauban.

The school is open to graduate students (more than three years of study), doctoral candidates and postdoctoral researchers and engineers and professionals who are less than 35 years old. 

The two-week event will cover the design and development of satnav systems, ranging from the satellites in space to supporting mission segments, the receivers relied on by service end-users and the development of new applications.

The program features lectures by leaders in the field, a project competition, technical visits and a one-day visit to Cité de l’Espace theme park in Toulouse.

Lecture topics include:
Fundamental principles of GNSS
Integrity and performance augmentation
sensor fusion and indoor positioning
applications for transportation, environment, leisure and other services.

ESA Education in Navigation program is organising the event together with ISAE and the Universitaet der Bundeswehr Muenchen (ISTA) in Germany, in cooperation with Stanford University in the United States and Technical University Graz in Austria, with the support of the French space agency CNES and the City of Toulouse.

For more information, including how to apply, go to the website below or contact Ms. Antje Tucci.

By Inside GNSS
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March 31, 2012

GNSS Hotspots | March 2012

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. DEAD IN THE WATER
San Francisco, California and Washington D.C., USA

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By Inside GNSS
March 29, 2012

Rohde & Schwarz GNSS Simulator Gains P-Code, GLONASS

Rohde & Schwarz SMBV100A vector signal generator/GNSS simulator

Rohde & Schwarz, based in Munich, Germany, has launched two extensions to the GNSS simulator in its SMBV100A vector signal generator: GLONASS and GPS P-code capability.

The SMBV100A already had the capability to generate a range of GPS and Galileo civil signals as well as wireless standards, including GSM/EDGE, 3GPP with HSPA, LTE, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi.

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By Inside GNSS

Satellite Development Advances as GPS Survives Budget Cuts, LightSquared

New GPS III Test Chamber (Lockheed Martin photo)

The United States GPS program is without doubt the elder statesman of GNSS, but it has had some close calls recently.

At the 2012 Munich Satellite Navigation Summit in March, a high-level Department of Transportation offical and the head of the Air Force GPS Directorate hailed continuing progress on the Global Positioning System’s third-generation satellite development and next-generation control segment (OCX), while apparently escaping — relatively unscathed — the dual perils of Congressional budget cuts and LightSquared interference.

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By Inside GNSS
March 26, 2012

Watch the Video: Physicists and GPS Expert Debate Results from the Large Hadron Collider

OPERA neutrino experiment at the Gran Sasso laboratory in Italy. (Photo: LNGS)

[Updated March 26, 2012] Six experts debatd the exciting – and controversial – claims of faster-than-light neutrinos from physicists who used the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s largest particle accelerator, in a European experiment that called into question the basics of modern physics.

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By Inside GNSS
March 22, 2012

SBIRS Decision Could Undermine Prospects for GPS Dual-Launch

SBIRS GEO-2 satellite in Baseline Integrated System Test (BIST-1). Lockheed Martin photo.

The Air Force is poised to forego putting nuclear detonation detection sensors on the Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS) satellites, a decision that could complicate efforts to maintain the GPS system by hampering plans to launch multiple, lighter GPS satellites on a single rocket.

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By Inside GNSS
March 21, 2012

Register Now for the 2012 GPS Partnership Council at Los Angeles AFB in May

GPS Partnership Council golf competition (USAF photo by Joe Juarez)

Registration is open for the 2012 GPS Partnership Council meeting at the USAF Space and Missile Systems Center, Los Angeles AFB, on Tuesday, May 1 and Wednesday, May 2.  As always, participants can compete in a golf tournament on an optional third day of networking and camaraderie on Wednesday, May 3.

The registration deadline is April 27.

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By Inside GNSS
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