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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.

By Inside GNSS

3rd China Satellite Navigation Conference (CSNC 2012)

Last year’s Satellite Navigation Conference, held in Shanghai.

Opening Day Video (CNTV)

The CSNC, now in its third year, is an open platform for academic exchanges in the field of satellite navigation. Its aim is to encourage technological innovation, accelerate GNSS engineering and boost the development of the satellite navigation industry in China.

The conference will be held May 15-19 2012 at the Poly World Trade Center, Exhibit Hall 6, in Guangzhou, China.

By Inside GNSS

April 21, 2012

Geospatial World Forum 2012

Pres. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, the “Missile Man of India,” in 2008. (wikicommons)

The 2012 Geospatial World Forum will be held at the Amsterdam RAI Exhibition and Convention Center from April 23 to April 27. The venue is in the south part of the city and close to the airport.

A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, president of India 2002-2007 and one of the country’s most famous space scientists, will give the keynote talk. Kalam, called the "People’s President" was also known as the "Missile Man of India" for his work on development of ballistic missile and space rocket technology.

By Inside GNSS

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European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2012

Austria Center Vienna

The EGU General Assembly 2012 will be held at the Austria Center Vienna from April 22 to April 27. The official language is English and scientists from all countries are welcome.

The EGU is a professional society and publisher of peer-reviewed, mainly open access, journals for those working in the geosciences, planetary and space sciences. The annual meeting regularly attracts over 10 thousand scientists and students from nearly 100 countries.

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.

By Inside GNSS

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.

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.”

By Inside GNSS

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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

SSTL Delivers Nav Payload for First Galileo FOC Satellite

Soyuz VS01, the first Soyuz flight from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, on its launch pad at Europe’s Spaceport before October 21, 2011, launch. ESA photo – S. Corvaja 2011

Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) has delivered the first of 14 full operational capability (FOC) payloads for Galileo to prime contractor OHB System AG.

First launch of Galileo FOC spacecraft from Europe’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, is currently expected to take place in the second quarter of 2013: two space vehicles (SVs) on board a Russian Soyuz rocket.

By Inside GNSS

April 17, 2012

ESA Awards Atomic Clock Contract to SpectraTime

SpectraTime has announced it has been awarded a €1-million contract to improve rubidium atomic frequency standards (RAFS) as part of the European Space Agency (ESA) GNSS Evolution Program.

SpectraTime is the existing supplier of atomic clocks for the Galileo satellites and other GNSS systems, including China’s Compass/BeiDou-2 program.

By Inside GNSS

April 16, 2012

GPS III Satellite System and GPS OCX Have a Conversation

Raytheon Company and Lockheed Martin have successfully completed the first significant integration milestone between Raytheon’s Next Generation GPS Operational Control System (OCX) and Lockheed Martin’s GPS III satellite development.

By Inside GNSS

April 6, 2012

China Plans Dual Launches of Compass-BeiDou MEOs

News sources indicate that the first Beidou-2 dual launch will take place in April or possibly May. A Long March 3B rocket will carry two middle Earth orbiting (MEO) satellites (M3 and M4) into orbit.

In addition to being the first dual launch of Compass satellites, this will be the first launch of MEO spacecraft since April 14, 2007, when the Chinese GNSS program put the initial second-generation BeiDou satellite into orbit. So far, Compass M1 is the only MEO satellite in the BeiDou-2 constellation.

By Inside GNSS

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.