Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design
In the past 20 years GPS has simultaneously revolutionized both our modern infrastructure (by providing real-time navigation, mapping, and timing support) and our geodetic/surveying capabilities (by providing millimeter/centimeter-level positioning). At this point, most of the GNSS innovations we expect to see in the next decade will come from calculating positions more accurately and faster, while expanding from GPS to use of all available GNSS signals.
By Inside GNSS
Equation 1The small satellite “Technologie-Erprobungs-Träger 1” (TET-1) is the first spacecraft developed for the German Aerospace Center (DLR) On-Orbit-Verification (OOV) program, which provides flight opportunities dedicated to testing and qualification of new technologies in space. The satellite was lifted into a low-Earth orbit (LEO) on July 22, 2012, from the launch site in Baikonur, Kazakhstan.
By Inside GNSS
Don’t be misled by the title. This is not another round of speculation about who should be proclaimed the rightful “Father of GPS.”
By Inside GNSS
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. WHAT’S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT?
Detroit, Michigan USA
With the optimism of college-bound seniors touring the Ivy League, GPS managers have been weighing options to dramatically change the GPS constellation. Now, after studying the costs, considering the benefits, and assessing the funding climate, officials have made the starkly fiscal decision to stick close to home and take a few extra years to finish.
By Dee Ann Divis
A. J. Van DierendonckThe world’s GNSS systems are entering a phase of transformation — modernization of existing systems (the U.S. Global Positioning System and Russia’s GLONASS) and development of new systems (China’s BeiDou and Europe’s Galileo) that benefit from the lessons learned from the original GNSSs.
Notable among the modernization initiatives is an interest in implementing new satellite signal designs. These include the GPS L5, L2C, and L1C signals as well as those signals designed for Galileo and BeiDou. GLONASS designers are also working on modernized signals.
By Inside GNSS
Article EquationsWorking Papers explore the technical and scientific themes that underpin GNSS programs and applications. This regular column is coordinated by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Günter Hein, head of Europe’s Galileo Operations and Evolution.
By Inside GNSS
Unmanned aerial vehicles or UAVs comprise a category of aircraft that fly without a human operator onboard. They are more popularly referred to by the misleading moniker “drones,” which masks the wide variety in their design and capability.
By Inside GNSS
The fifth GPS Block IIF satellites is scheduled for launch from Cape Canaveral on February 20 after concerns regarding a 2012 launch anomaly led the Air Force to scrub a planned launch last fall. A Delta IV M+ will carry the spacecraft into orbit.
Additional GPS IIF launches this year are tentatively set for May (Delta IV M+) and July (Atlas V rocket). The last GPS launch (GPS IIF-4) took place on May 13, 2013.
Russia, which suffered a launch failure in July that cost it three GLONASS-M satellites, plans to launch four more by the end of this year and four more in the latter half of 2014 — part of an overall plan to place a total of 12 satellites into orbit by the end of 2015.
By Inside GNSS
Significant progress has been made in integrating two classes of small, unmanned aircraft into the national air space (NAS), an area of considerable interest for GNSS companies whose products provide navigation and guidance for many of the unmanned systems.
By Dee Ann Divis
The Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) at Los Angeles Air Force Base, California, has signed a cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) with Space Exploration Technologies Corp., better known as SpaceX, to certify the company’s Falcon launcher for future National Security Space (NSS) missions.
By Dee Ann Divis
Existing methods for improving the GNSS performance commonly attempt to enhance the signal processing and navigation estimation parts of a single receiver. Such approaches, however, leave unexplored the potential benefits inherent to the integration of data from multiple receivers.
By Inside GNSS
