Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design
The House Armed Services Committee (HASC) is considering legislation that would fully authorize the White House’s funding request for GPS and possibly add provisions aimed at evaluating the new, troubled GPS ground system and pushing the Pentagon to look at a global backup for GPS.
By Inside GNSS
College Park Marriott Hotel and Conference CenterThe 2015 Space Situational Awareness (SSA) Forum will be held at the College Park Marriott Hotel and Conference Center in Hyattsville, Maryland, U.S.A. on May 12-13, 2015.
By Inside GNSS
Registrations are still available for the this year’s European Space Agency (ESA) International Summer School on Global Navigation Satellite Systems, which will take place in Barcelona, Spain, at the end of August.
Meb Keflezighi midway through 2014 Boston Marathon en route to victory. Wikimedia Commons photo“Wearable” sensors, the Internet of Things, and GNSS didn’t achieve as high a profile as they might have in the 2015 Boston Marathon held Monday (April 20, 2015). That’s because last year’s winner, Meb Keflezighi, finished eighth behind Ethiopia’s Lelisa Desisa and well off the former’s winning 2014 pace of 2:08:37.
NovAtel GPS-704-WB antennaNovAtel Inc. today (April 23, 2015) launched the GPS-704-WB antenna, a wideband antenna that supports L-band as well as the frequencies of all current GNSS constellations (GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, and BeiDou), including B3 and E6 signals. Customers can use this antenna for GPS-only or multi-constellation applications, providing excellent flexibility for application developers, according to the company.
By Inside GNSS
Launch of GPS IIF-9 on March 25, 2015. United Launch Alliance photoIn a Notice to NAVSTAR Users (NANU 2015028), the U.S. Air Force announced that the ninth GPS-IIF satellite, SVN-71/PRN-26, launched on March 25, 2015, has completed its operational checkout and was set to healthy and usable on Monday (April 20, 2015). This brings the number of satellites transmitting the L2C signal to 16 and those transmitting the L5 signal to 9.
The next GPS-IIF satellite, IIF-10/SVN-72 is tentatively scheduled for launch on June 16.
By Inside GNSS
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has awarded a $103-million contract to the Raytheon Company to maintain the GPS Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS).
The company will develop a payload to be incorporated into a new geostationary satellite and two associated ground uplink stations to support the WAAS system within U.S. airspace. WAAS improves real-time GPS accuracy from 10 meters to about two meters by transmitting differential corrections as well as integrity messages and an additional ranging signal.
By Inside GNSS
The Navy is preparing to buy a new Assured Positioning, Navigation and Timing (A-PNT) Navigation Suite and is asking industry to help it craft its acquisition approach by submitting ideas, products and potential solutions.
Specifically, the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR) is looking for “innovative ways to enhance the future navigation suite to navigate in a GPS denied environment.”
By Inside GNSS
The Air Force has sharply recast the contest to build up to 22 additional satellites to fill out the GPS III constellation, slashing the maximum funding for the first phase of a “recompete” from $200 million per award to a scant $6 million.
By Inside GNSS
The 2015 edition of the European Navigation Conference (ENC) in Bordeaux last week found the continent’s GNSS community leaving troubles behind and looking to the future, where the world’s dependence on GNSS is greater, the risks higher, and the potential profits ever more tantalizing.
Speaking at the opening session dedicated to “the impact of GNSS on the economic sector,” Topos Cluster President Florence Ghiron answered the question in the simplest of terms: “We expect the GNSS market to grow and to include more and more industrial sectors.”
AsteRx4 OEM receiverSeptentrio has launched its next-generation dual-antenna GNSS receiver — the AsteRx4 OEM, a multi-frequency receiver that incorporates the latest GNSS tracking and positioning algorithms and operates with all available GNSS signals (GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou, Galileo).
By Inside GNSS
NovAtel Inc. has announced the launch of the Relay RTK radio module, a docking station that provides radio connectivity for the company’s SMART6-L L-band–capable GNSS receiver.
The Coast Guard is poised to release a new cybersecurity strategy that includes a resilient position and navigation capability.
The new strategy, which is reportedly due to be announced any day, was previewed by Vice Adm. Charles Michel, the Coast Guards’ deputy commandant for operations, at a maritime cyber security conference in early March.
By Inside GNSS
