1. HERE KITTY, KITTY
Nassau County,New York USA
√ IEEE Spectrum blogger Mark Spezio attached a GPS logger to his wandering cat, whose complex journeys centered on a mouse-hunting paradise: Nassau County Storm Water Basin Storage Area. The cat was amazed to see Mark show up at his secret hideaway.
See cat and maps here
1. HERE KITTY, KITTY
Nassau County,New York USA
√ IEEE Spectrum blogger Mark Spezio attached a GPS logger to his wandering cat, whose complex journeys centered on a mouse-hunting paradise: Nassau County Storm Water Basin Storage Area. The cat was amazed to see Mark show up at his secret hideaway.
See cat and maps here
2. SUMMER SCHOOL
Slettestrand, Denmark
√ The fourth International Summer School on GNSS has a new location and two new lead sponsors: the European Space Agency and Nokia. It will take place at the Danish GPS Center in Slettestrand, Denmark from September 1–11 and welcomes graduate students, post docs and young professionals.
Limited to 50 students — register soon
3. GNSS for Africa
Trieste, Italy and Abuja, Nigeria
√ Sixty African scientists and engineers from 15 nations met in April in Trieste with European and American GNSS experts to help them jump-start college courses and research programs. The goal: new space-based technology for farming, tracking, monitoring and mapping. Boston University scientist Pat Doherty says that they’ll do the Institute of Navigation–sponsored event again in 2011 in Abuja, Nigeria.
4. LET’S MAKE A DEAL
Kiev/Kyiv, Ukraine
√ Ukraine, with its loyalties split between Europe and Russia, tilted further east with a GLONASS cooperation agreement on May 17. Ukraine ground stations will participate in satellite communications and monitoring and the countries will jointly develop new satnav user equipment. They will “synchronize [some] military technology standards and broaden defense cooperation,” says the Geopolitical Monitor, a “web-based open source intelligence collection and forecasting service.”
5. STORMY WEATHER
√ A solar storm is the prime suspect in April’s loss of control over an Intelsat GEO carrying a GPS Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) transponder. Luckily, a number of solar studies are underway now — including NASA’s solar observatory (SDO), which will carry out three experiments this year on the sun’s activity and its effect on space weather.