Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design
President Obama’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2011 (FY11) would allocate $1.057 billion for Department of Defense (DoD) GPS-related procurement and development activities and nearly $180 million to the Department of Transportation (DoT) for civil GPS programs.
By Inside GNSS
[UPDATED Feb. 8, 2010] The Russian GNSS system, GLONASS, has brought its contingent of transmitting satellites back up to 19, as spacecraft launched in December and others off-line for maintenance have returned to healthy status.
Meanwhile, Voice of Russia, the Russian government’s international radio broadcasting service, has reported that a monitoring station is being established at the Russian Antarctic outpost of Bellingshausen to track GLONASS satellites. The orbital planes in the constellation are oriented so that GLONASS spacecraft pass over higher latitudes in the northern and southern hemispheres than do the other GNSS systems.
By Inside GNSS
Aerial view of ESA-ESTEC facility at Noordwijk, The Netherlands. ESA photo by A. Van Der GeestRené Oosterlinck, the European Space Agency’s director of the Galileo program and navigation-related activities, and company representative signed the first three contracts for the Galileo full operational capability (FOC) phase on January 26. The event marks the official start of building the Galileo operational infrastructure.
By Inside GNSS
Block IIF satelliteThe U.S. Air Force GPS Wing and the 50th Space Wing will implement a new ground system software release on January 11 to enable telemetry, tracking, and commanding for the new GPS IIF satellites and provide over-the-air distribution of encryption keys for military user P(Y)-code equipment.
The software will be implemented by the GPS Master Control Center at Schriever AFB, Colorado.
Meanwhile, the schedules for launching the first IIF spacecraft and awarding the prime contract for modernization of the GPS operational control segment (OCX) continue to slip.
By Inside GNSS
The European Commission (EC) announced today (January 7) the award of three of the six contracts for the procurement of Galileo’s initial operational capability (IOC), including a €566-million (US$811.2-million) award to OHB System AG for a first order of 14 satellites.
By Inside GNSS
The Asia Oceania Region Workshop on GNSS is a new event organized by Japan’s space agency and Satellite Positioning Research and Applications Center and GISTDA, Thailand’s space agency.
It will take place at the Sofitel Centara Grand Bangkok hotel on Monday and Tuesday, January 25-26, 2010.
By Inside GNSS
"GPS Jamming and Interference – A Clear and Present Danger" is the theme of this one-day conference sponsored by the Royal Institute of Navigation and the Location and Timing Program of Digital Systems KTN, a UK network funded by Britain’s Technology Strategy Board.
The event will be held at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington (London) on Tuesday, February 23.
By Inside GNSS
Winners of key Galileo contracts will be announced January 7 or 8, following a quiet period after the European Space Agency (ESA) recommended the OHB System/Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. (SSTL) team for building the first round of eight full operational capability (FOC) satellites.
Former competitors ThalesAleniaSpace, Italy, and Logica, The Netherlands, reportedly will join forces to carry out the contract for Work Package 1, Galileo system support, which includes responsibility for system and signal-in-space engineering.
By Inside GNSS
Ice on the tower at Loran Station Dana (Indiana). Photo by Charles SchaafPresident Obama had a big day on October 28, signing 2010 bills for the departments of defense (DoD) and homeland security (DHS) that cut significant programs — eLoran, HIGPS, OCX — connected with the Global Positioning System.
By Inside GNSS
Galileo IOV ProtoFlight Model under AssemblyGalileo program managers appear to have bowed to the unavoidable and acknowledged that completing the European satellite navigation system will take longer and cost more than their revised estimates of 2014 and €3.4-billion ($5.04-billion), respectively
And, although a revised Galileo Open Service Signal-in-Space Interface Control Document (OS-SIS-ICD) will appear soon allowing manufacture and sale of Galileo equipment without a license, the ICD will still require a license for commercial use of the intellectual property contained in the document.
By Inside GNSS
Cao ChongChinese- and English-language versions of a draft Interface Control Document (ICD) for China’s Compass open service signals have been written and will probably be released within a year, a speaker at the Stanford PNT Symposium said in an October 22 presentation.
By Inside GNSS
Prof. Jingnan LiuA draft interface control document for China’s Compass (Beidou-2) GNSS system may be available by next year, according to remarks made at a September 30 presentation at the University of Nottingham (United Kingdom) by Jingnan Liu, principal scientist at the National GNSS Research Center of Wuhan University.
By Inside GNSS
An increasingly likely $97.4-million cut in the GPS OCX budget for fiscal year 2010 (FY10) would slow down work on modernization of the operational control segment, but the Air Force would try to recoup any reduction in the FY11 budget.
Meanwhile, technical problems that have delayed development of the follow-on generation of Block IIF satellites are largely resolved and a first launch is expected in May 2010.
By Inside GNSS
