Global Navigation Satellite Systems Engineering, Policy, and Design
ION’s Joint Navigation Conference (JNC 2019) will be held July 8-10, at the Hyatt Regency Long Beach, Long Beach, California; and the U.S. ONLY CLASSIFIED sessions will be held July 11 at The Aerospace Corporation.
By Inside GNSS
UPDATE: A week after this story appeared the news broke that Fred Kennedy had quit as the head of the Air Force’s new Space Development Agency after just four months on the job. News reports suggested that issues with his boss, Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Mike Griffin, were at the heart of the resignation. — Dee Ann Divis
The director of the Department of Defense’s new Space Development Agency (SDA) said Friday that one of his priority projects is to create an alternate GPS capability using frequencies different from those of the current constellation.
By Dee Ann Divis
I read with great enthusiasm Dee Ann Divis’ article New Chimera Signal Enhancement Could Spoof-Proof GPS Receivers. Logan Scott is one of the brightest people I know, and I very much enjoyed his presentation about Chimera last week at the National PNT Advisory Board’s public meeting in Alexandria, Virginia.
By Dana A. Goward
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (May 22, 2019) – Collins Aerospace Systems, a unit of United Technologies Corp., has received the Global Positioning Systems Directorate (GPS-D) security certification from the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center (USAF SMC) for its Military Code (M-Code) Common GPS Module (CGM). Security certification validates compliance to the stringent Military GPS User Equipment (MGUE) hardware and software security design specification. With security certification, the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) can significantly expand MGUE receiver integration and testing locations supporting the operational deployment of M-Code.
By Inside GNSS
HERNDON, Va., – The former deputy director of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), Major General (ret.) Stephen Denker, will join Lockheed Martin to lead key satellite ground programs, effective Monday, April 1. Denker will oversee Intelligence and Analytic Development programs in support of space ground systems within the Mission Solutions line of business for Lockheed Martin Space.
By Inside GNSS
The GPS community made real progress during 2018. The first GPS III satellite was launched, the contractor for the GPS IIIF satellites was chosen and work on the new ground system appeared to be on a good track. In addition, after years of waiting, two of three requested Galileo signals were approved for official use in the United States and Congress ordered the building of a backup system for GPS timing.
By Dee Ann Divis
Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) is introducing ADA-O, an additional development in the ADA lineup, which addresses GPS jammers to ensure GPS availability for land platforms. The land platform can be readily integrated in a range of platforms, providing a unique operational response to help telecom, navigation and C&C systems. Easily installed and integrated on the end-user platform, it serves end users on armored vehicles, artillery, C&C centers and communication carriers, according to IAI.
By Inside GNSS
The Pentagon Friday released its proposal for enabling legislation to create a Space Force, a new military branch expected to eventually comprise some 15,000 personnel.
“Establishing a Space Force is a strategic priority to facilitate the DOD’s preparation for the character of warfare in the twenty-first century,” the Department of Defense (DOD) wrote in an overview. “A sixth branch of the Armed Forces dedicated to space will catalyze a fundamental transformation of our approach to space from a combat support function to a domain of competition and potential conflict.”
By Dee Ann Divis
With the swipe of a pen President Donald Trump set in motion the creation of a U.S. Space Force to help boost and focus efforts to defend U.S. space assets as other nations build out their capacity to cripple America’s on-orbit capabilities.
By Dee Ann Divis
Two recent reports have underscored the threats to the GPS system from space-capable adversaries. Both the Worldwide Threat Assessment, released Jan. 30 by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and theDefense Intelligence Agency’s newly released Challenges to Security in Spacedetail the potential for China, Russia and others to damage the constellation or disrupt its signals.
With worries mounting about these risks, and the more mundane but still harmful prospect of regional jamming or spoofing, organizations throughout the U.S. government are working on ways to address vulnerabilities and find ways to operate without GPS.
By Dee Ann Divis
Congressman John Garamendi, D-California, is the new chairman of the House Armed Services Readiness Subcommittee, which oversees one-third of the Department of Defense’s budget — the largest such responsibility of any subcommittee on the Armed Services Committee.
By Dee Ann Divis
The U.S. Air Force awarded Lockheed Martin the GPS Control Segment Sustainment II (GCS II) contract to continue to sustain and further modernize the Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite constellation’s ground control system through 2025. This is the follow-on contract to Lockheed Martin’s current GCS contract awarded in 2013.
By Inside GNSS
With the partial government shutdown nearing a record-breaking fourth week, news outlets are full of stories about security back-ups at airports, forgone food inspections, government employees in dire financial straits and a long list of other consequences of shuttering nine different federal departments and a host of agencies.
By Dee Ann Divis
GPS/GNSS test equipment provider Spirent Federal Systems has announced that their new M-Code solution, SimMNSA, has been granted Security Approval by the Global Positioning System Directorate. They are the first and only company to provide this highly anticipated solution for simulating classified GPS signals, and are currently taking orders, according to a press release.
By Inside GNSS
The National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) Advisory Board kicked off a two-day meeting in Redondo Beach, California this morning with James J. Miller, Executive Director, PNT Advisory Board, NASA Headquarters; John Stenbit, Chair, and Dr. Bradford Parkinson, 1st Vice-Chair, among those speaking at the opening of the sessions.
By Inside GNSS
