Topcon Positioning Group said that its latest GNSS reference receiver, the NET-G5, is capable of tracking a new signal from the GLONASS constellation.
The GLONASS-M 55 satellite was launched in June 2014 and is equipped with the experimental payload capable of transmitting signals in the L3 frequency band. Engineers successfully tracked the signal with the NET-G5 receiver during a series of recent tests at the Topcon Technology Center in Moscow. The use of signals in L3 band alongside L1 and L2 bands is expected to further enhance the competitiveness of the GLONASS system.
“Topcon is committed to continually investing in research and development to offer end-users and the industry the most up-to-date solutions,” said Ivan Di Federico, chief strategy officer for Topcon Positioning Systems. “Our premier engineers, scientists and designers bring world’s first products and technologies to market, and the ability of the NET-G5 to track the latest signal — a first for the industry — is an excellent example of that dedication.”
Using Vanguard and Universal Tracking technologies, the NET-G5 receiver incorporates 452-channels capable of tracking the full GNSS signal spectrum, including modernized GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou, QZSS and SBAS signals.
China plans to build a BeiDou station in Antarctica this summer, according to a report in the Sydney Morning Herald. China’s official Xinhua news agency disclosed the plans.
The facility at Great Wall station in Antarctica will include receivers, auxiliary equipment and a reference station key to improving BieDou’s accuracy, according to the Chinese enews.com website.
Project leader Wu Xuefeng said the BeiDou facility would greatly improve China’s Antarctic mapping autonomy and improving the system’s precision.
The BeiDou facility will join others, including Norway’s Trollsat, strategically located in Antarctica to fit that country’s global networks, but which some claim breach the Antarctic Treaty. The treaty says “Antarctica shall be used for peaceful purposes only” and prohibits activities of a military nature.
Norwegian Bard Wormdal, author of The Satellite War, told Fairfax Media, “The Chinese military wants to use BeiDou for instance for guiding all sorts of missiles. A BeiDou base in Antarctica makes the system more reliable and precise.” He first raised alarm over the Norwegian satellite base at its Troll Antarctic station, which he found had been used by the U.S. National Geospatial Intelligence Agency.
Russia has three GLONASS ground stations on the continent.
Telit Wireless Solutions has debuted the Jupiter SL871-S, designed for easy migration between a full-GNSS solution for top-ranked applications and a simple GPS-only solution for less demanding applications. The Jupiter SL871-S is designed to track and navigate GPS and QZSS constellations while ensuring pin-to-pin and protocol compatibility with its multi-constellation companion module, the SL871.
The module comes in a 9.7 x 10.1 millimeter LCC package with an ARM7 baseband processor, embedded ROM memory, and integrated LNA. It delivers geolocation data using NMEA protocol through a standard UART port. It supports ephemeris file injection (A-GPS) as well as Satellite Based Augmentation System (SBAS) for increased position accuracy.
In addition, its extremely low power consumption in all conditions is suited to applications requiring long battery life.
SL871-S has been designed to ensure hardware and software compatibility with SL871, allowing customers to design once and take advantage of the xL871 common form factor. Benefits include:
Pin-to-pin compatibility with SL871 family,
Same protocol used in SL871,
Straightforward migration between full-GNSS solutions and GPS-only solutions,
Satellite Based Augmentation System (SBAS) support for increased position accuracy, and
Assisted GPS.
The SL871-S can replace the SL871, allowing customers to design once and interchangeably mount the appropriate solution depending on the required features.
“The new SL871-S module designed to be easily swapped with other xL871 modules for enhanced simplicity and scalability,” said Taneli Tuurnala, CEO of Telit GNSS Solutions. “It is an ideal example of how buying a module from Telit enables our customers to avert the need to keep track of the latest chipset technology on their own. We keep them on top of the best available technology, pre-packaged in a module that is easy to replace as needed, without having to redesign their entire application to stay up to date.”
A hail suppression project dubbed RO-BERTA by the University of Applied Sciences, Rosenheim (Germany), has been selected the winner of the European Satellite Navigation Competition’s (ESNC) University Challenge. Judged by an international expert jury, the University Challenge is a special prize to reward innovative ideas emerging from Europe’s universities.
The Hail Navigator system is designed to reduce damage caused by hail. Based on the premise of suppressing the formation of hail by injecting silver iodide into clouds, Hail Navigator combines navigation with a precipitation reporting system that can guide pilots to optimal locations for hail suppression missions.
The system is complemented by weather observations (including precise times and locations) reported by local citizens via a smartphone app, which aids the validation of weather prediction models. These models constitute an important factor in deciding whether a hail suppression flight is necessary.
The project team was awarded the prize on October 23 in Berlin at the ESNC Awards Ceremony. More than 300 guests attended, representing the top European players in the navigation sector. In addition to cash, the prize includes support through the GNSS Research & Applications Centre of Excellence (GRACE) and a free ticket to the Munich Satellite Navigation Summit 2015.
“Winning this prize once again demonstrates that interdisciplinary cooperation is feasible and successful,” said Project Manager Peter Zentgraf. “The positive feedback the competition provides helps drive our many students to continue their dedicated work, which made it possible to reach our project goals.”
The fifth Galileo satellite is now pointing toward Earth. Photo: Galileo
The fifth Galileo navigation satellite, one of two left in the wrong orbit this summer, will make a series of maneuvers this month as a prelude to its health being confirmed. The aim is to raise the lowest point of its orbit — its perigee — to reduce the radiation exposure from the Van Allen radiation belts surrounding Earth, as well as to put it into a more useful orbit for navigation purposes.
Should the two-week operation prove successful, the sixth Galileo satellite will follow the same route, according to the European Space Agency (ESA).
The Galileo pair, launched together on a Soyuz rocket on August 22, ended up in an elongated orbit traveling out to 25,900 km above Earth and back down to 13,713 km. The target orbit was a purely circular one at an altitude of 23,222 km. Also, the orbits are angled relative to the equator less than originally planned.
The two satellites have only enough fuel to lift their altitude by about 4,000 km — insufficient to correct their orbits entirely. But the move will take the fifth satellite into a more circular orbit than before, with a higher perigee of 17,339 km.
“The new orbit will fly over the same location every 20 days,” said Daniel Navarro-Reyes, ESA Galileo mission analyst. “The standard Galileo repeat pattern is every 10 days, so achieving this will synchronize the ground track with the rest of the Galileo satellites.”
“In addition, from a user receiver point of view, the revised orbit will reduce the variation in signal levels, reduce the Doppler shift of the signal, and increase the satellite’s visibility,” Navarro-Reyes said. “For the satellite, reducing its radiation exposure in the Van Allen radiation belts will protect it from further exposure to charged particles. The orbit will also allow Galileo’s Earth Sensor to hold a stable direction for the satellite’s main antenna to point at Earth. Right now, when the satellite dips to its lowest point, Earth appears so large that the sensor is unusable. The satellite relies on gyroscopes alone, degrading its attitude precision.”
The recovery is being overseen from the Galileo Control Centre in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany, with the assistance of ESA’s Space Operations Centre, ESOC, in Darmstadt, Germany. France’s CNES space agency is providing additional ground stations so that contact can be maintained with the satellite as needed, ESA said.
The two satellites were previously Sun-pointing. “On 3 November that changed for the fifth satellite, as it transitioned to normal Earth-pointing mode,” added Daniel.
During November, some 15 maneuvers will take the satellite into its new orbit. Once there, it can formally begin in-orbit testing. The host satellite’s health is checked first, followed by more detailed navigation payload testing, ESA said.
Galileo orbits viewed from above: Orbits of the fifth and sixth satellites in red, compared to their intended position in dashed green, and the position of the four satellites launched in 2011 and 2012 in solid green. This view looks down over the South Pole to illustrate how the inclination relative to the equator is less than intended. The satellites are in an elliptical rather than circular orbit, with a maximum altitude of about 25,900 km and a minimum altitude of about 13,700 km, compared to a planned circular orbit of 23,222 km altitude. Photo: GalileoGalileo orbits viewed side-on: The fifth and sixth Galileo satellites in red, compared to their intended position in dashed green, and the position of the four satellites launched in 2011 and 2012, in solid green. This view looks side on to the two satellites’ orbital plane, which is off-center relative to Earth. The targeted orbit was circular, inclined at 55º to the equator at an altitude of 23,222 km.They are in a safe state, correctly pointing towards the Sun, properly powered and fully under control of an ESA–CNES team. Photo: Galileo
Trimble is making available the Trimble Leap, a Trimble RTX compatible GNSS Bluetooth device. When enabled with the ViewPoint RTX correction service, Leap delivers submeter accuracy directly to the Terrain Navigator Pro (TNP) Mobile app for iOS and Android devices. The TNP Mobile app allows users to collect markers, tracks and geo-stamped photos in the field, and then sync all the GNSS data into the Terrain Navigator Pro office software.
The TNP Mobile app enables users to:
Display and navigate routes created in TNP desktop.
Collect field data such as markers, tracks, photos, videos and audio clips.
Near real-time sync between phone and TNP map software via WiFi or cellular data connection.
View data on topo, aerial, and street maps downloaded to phone for offline use. Terrain Navigator Pro offers 1-meter aerial photos for the 48 contiguous United States. The seamless USGS topo graphic maps are based off 1:24K, 1:100K, 1:250K map scales. Alaska is 1:63K and 1:250K.
Access a compass and other geo-information such as lat/long, elevation, and direction on phone.
Collect data offline. The TNP mobile app uses the GPS built into the smartphones, so users can collect field data in areas without a cellular or data signal.
Trimble Leap is compact and portable, weighing 9.5 ounces. It snaps to a smartphone or tablet to use as a handheld, can be mounted on a monopole or tripod, or can be magnet mounted to a vehicle. Leap has 16 hours of battery life and uses Bluetooth communication to connect to smart devices for ease of use and flexibility. An onboard micro SD card stores the GNSS observables data for use in the field or the office.
A micro USB port can provide power to Trimble Leap for continuous fixed-mount applications, or it can be used with battery-booster products to extend field work. Trimble Leap is charged by a standard cell phone vehicle accessory charger, a USB connection to a PC, or from a USB AC adapter.
Based on Trimble RTX (Real Time eXtended) technology, ViewPoint RTX delivers better than 1 meter horizontal accuracy 95 percent of the time without the use of a traditional RTK base station or virtual reference station network. ViewPoint RTX is delivered into the TNP Mobile app via cellular data network and is available nearly anywhere in the world.
“Trimble Leap enhances the Terrain Navigator Pro solution by adding a simple way to collect submeter accurate geolocation data with standard Android or iOS devices. Adding accuracy to TNP’s robust field-to-office data collection solution provides a value-add where low-resolution collection is not sufficient. Trimble Leap with TNP Mobile is configured and operational in minutes with little training,” said Larry Fox, business area manager for Terrain Navigator Pro.
Terrain Navigator Pro integrates powerful desktop mapping software, a cloud connected mobile data collection platform (compatible with GPS-enabled iOS and Android devices) and a robust Web portal. TNP users can plan projects in the office, collect data in the field and access projects from the Web—simultaneously. Geo-referenced data such as tracks, waypoints, photographs and video can be shared, updated in near real-time and displayed on the included topographic, aerial/satellite or street base maps.
The second GLONASS-K1 satellite on its way to the Plesetsk Cosmodrome. Photo: CANSPACE Listserv
News courtesy of CANSPACE Listserv.
According to ISS Reshetnev, the manufacturer of GLONASS satellites, the second GLONASS-K1 satellite (serial number 12L) has just been delivered to the Plesetsk Cosmodrome. It is now being prepared for launch November 30. The launch date had previously been set as November 20.
Reshetnev made a number of production design changes to this GLONASS satellite, allowing an expansion of the functionality of the satellite and an improvement its performance. The satellite will transmit five navigation signals in three frequency bands: L1, L2, and L3. The satellite is built on the unpressurized Express-1000K platform. The designed lifetime of the satellite is 10 years.
Carlson GIS360 for Android, new from Carlson Software and Carlson EMEA, is a mobile field GIS-GPS tool that uses both GIS and surveying technologies for field data collection. The app is designed to be easy to learn and easy to use, Carlson said.
“Taking advantage of the graphics processing power of Android devices, GIS360 now includes an innovative 3D viewer so the user can see data and models in 3D on site,” said David Loescher, Carlson U.K. sales director and director of GIS360 development.
In addition to allowing field crews to navigate maps and collect and report data in the field, GIS360 provides the data and fully rendered models of mines, earthworks and pipe networks that can be viewed in 3D. The software’s Siteview function uses the Android devices’ built-in GPS, compass and gyros to give the user the view of the site in front of him.
Carlson GIS360 provides a wireless connection to any map server of choice, so users are never without a map. This saves considerable time and effort as field crews can verify that all of the data collected is accurate before leaving the site, Carlson said. No costly site revisits are necessary and no office work is needed.
The software’s cloud options provide backup for users’ data, enabling it to be shared between field and office in real time. GIS360 goes beyond positioning with a range of tools for mobile workforce management, GPS data collection, tracking and asset maintenance.
On an Android tablet or smartphone, Carlson GIS360 for Android can take GIS data anywhere. The built-in GPS and compass instantly calculate what the user is looking at and then displays the data automatically.
“The GIS360 development team set out to make the collection of asset information easier and more efficient by combining the power of GIS360 with affordable Android devices,” added Loescher. “The result not only saves a lot of field time, but also makes the process far easier for everyone concerned.”
Trimble has introduced the latest version of its smart water infrastructure mapping and work management cloud software — Trimble Connect for Water version 1.9.
The latest release of the geographic information system (GIS) centric software-as-a-service (SaaS) adds real-time, high-accuracy centimeter-level horizontal and vertical GNSS accuracy for capturing 3D asset positions. The new release includes a suite of applications that allow water, wastewater and stormwater utilities to accurately locate, inventory and visualize their infrastructure assets and increase operations and maintenance efficiency.
Trimble Connect for Water cloud software leverages Trimble’s GNSS rugged mobile devices and Esri’s GIS technologies to accurately map, locate and assess the condition of critical infrastructure assets, allowing utilities to keep their field infrastructure data up-to-date and accurate.
The new release now supports Trimble’s Geo 7 Centimeter Edition rugged handheld, integrating 3D mapping into utility field workflows and enabling mobile workers to precisely locate and map the horizontal position and elevation of buried infrastructure.
Trimble Connect for Water version 1.9 can be configured and deployed quickly on a variety of Trimble and non-Trimble mobile devices, laptops, tablets and smartphones, including Apple iPads, iPhones, Android, Windows and Windows Mobile devices to automate fieldwork and eliminate paper-based maps.
Trimble Connect uses the latest Esri ArcGIS for Server, Mobile and ArcGIS Online basemap services. The software is designed to automate a variety of specific water, wastewater and stormwater industry workflows through individual pre-configured “apps” offered within the product and as part of a subscription.
The new version provides standard core apps including Map Book, Manhole Inspector, Leak Repair, Hydrant Inspector, Valve Inspector, Meter Changeout, Incident Repair, Water Mapper, Wastewater Mapper and Stormwater Mapper. In addition, an optional partner app developed for American Flow Control (AFC) hydrant and valve data collection, “AFC Mapper,” can be purchased from AFC and their distributors for use with Trimble rugged handhelds.
Trimble Connect for Water version 1.9:
Offers centimeter-level real-time GNSS accuracy to improve the quality and accuracy of the utility’s GIS data to precisely locate hard to find assets.
Allows capturing accurate vertical elevations in real-time. Combined with horizontal precision, the solution provides high-accuracy GIS data that can be used to measure pipeline slopes, perform flow analysis and generate 3D and hydraulic models.
Supports the Trimble Geo 7 Centimeter edition with an integrated laser rangefinder.
Offers pre-configured Water, Wastewater and Stormwater mapping apps, allowing utilities to quickly start mapping network infrastructure and updating their asset data.
Provides the capability to export data in a variety of formats including Esri File Geodatabase, Shapefiles and MS Excel, which allows users to update the utility’s enterprise GIS or visualize and analyze the collected data using third-party systems.
Trimble Connect for Water version 1.9 is expected to be available in December 2014 from Trimble’s Water Division and its authorized distribution partners.
Thorsten Rudolph, Application Center GmbH Oberpfaffenhofen (left), and Rolf Densing, DLR (right), award the Airbus team of Jan Wendel and Wolfgang Kogler the EUR 20,000 grand prize. Photo: ESNC
The winner of the European Satellite Navigation Competition (ESNC) 2014 is Airbus Defence & Space, which won over the jury of experts from around the world with its ground-breaking and cost-effective receiver for the Galileo Public Regulated Service (PRS).
The award winners were announced October 23 at an awards ceremony held at the Berlin headquarters of Deutsche Telekom. The awards recognize innovations in the commercial use of satellite navigation technology.
“Award winners Wolfgang Kogler and Jan Wendel from Airbus Defence & Space have taken a cutting-edge approach to designing a low-cost receiver that enables police departments, fire brigades, emergency medical services, and other public entities to make use of the Galileo PRS system,” The ESNC said. “Its core innovation involves the development of a special network architecture that combines the receiver with an assistance server. The concept accounts for all the required security aspects and significantly reduces costs and the complexity of user receivers, thus facilitating broader use of PRS in the realm of public security.”
In addition to the EUR 20,000 grand prize, the design took home Bavaria’s regional prize and the ESNC’s special PRS prize, which was awarded by Germany’s Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI) and Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi).
“This special prize reflects our effort to further examine possibilities for the use of PRS applications,” said Tobias Miethaner, Head of the BMVI’s Digital Society, in his opening address at the awards ceremony. “I am delighted to see that the ESNC is already providing an important impetus to the promotion and development of innovative applications of the future Galileo PRS in its first year.”
Over the past decade, the ESNC has brought forth numerous new applications in the field of satellite navigation. The 2014 edition was shaped in particular by the imminent launch of the first Galileo services, with more than 40% of the 434 submissions received from more than 40 countries seeking to employ Galileo/EGNOS in their own products and services.
“Thanks to our international network, we’re in an excellent position to take advantage of Galileo’s operational launch,” said Thorsten Rudolph, managing director of Anwendungszentrum GmbH Oberpfaffenhofen, which initiated and continues to organize the ESNC. “We believe that the ESNC’s function as a leading innovation framework in its field will grant it an equally important role in Europe’s new satellite navigation system.”
Along with the overall winner, 240 experts in the ESNC’s renowned network selected more than 30 other winners in the competition’s regional and special-prize challenges. Under the patronage of Germany’s Federal Minister of Transport, prizes worth a total of EUR 1 million were presented at the awards ceremony. The winners illustrated the fundamental importance of robust, reliable, and secure time and positioning signals for Europe’s digital society through innovations in areas such as transport, health, and the environment.
2014 Special Prize Winners
In addition to selecting its overall winner, the 11th European Satellite Navigation Competition (ESNC) has awarded prizes in six different special categories and to 25 regional winners.
GSA: The most promising application idea for European GNSS
The Galileo for ARA module will use a key feature of Galileo – its E5 broadband signal – to create new possibilities in the development of smartphone applications that require high accuracy. The team thus plans to integrate E5 Galileo receiver modules for enhanced accuracy and develop an antenna interface module to provide better performance. This will offer improved positioning precision with centimetre-level accuracy and a multipath-resistant solution designed for pedestrians and urban environments.
ESA Innovation Prize & Flanders/Belgium — Overall Ranking: 3rd Place
stickNtrack is a disruptive innovation that opens up an abundance of new business opportunities in tracking trailers, containers, machinery, tools, bikes, and more. It functions for up to 10 years without the hassle of charging batteries, managing SIM cards, or any intrusive installations while consuming up to 40 times less power. StickNtrack also lowers life-cycle costs by 50% compared to current compact GPRS/GPS products.
This artificial ground-based solution will significantly boost the coverage of satellite-based augmentation systems (SBAS, such as EGNOS) to ensure safe landings on all airport runways. SBAS assistance can be limited due to a lack of signal coverage in the far north, in the mountains, or in highly urbanised areas. By receiving and retransmitting GPS corrections, the proposed system will enable the use of systems like EGNOS in such difficult environments. Thanks to its competitive cost and reliability, this system will be a strong alternative to conventional instrument landing systems (ILS).
Hail Navigator is a novel system designed to reduce damage caused by hail. The formation of hail can be suppressed by injecting silver iodide into clouds. Hail Navigator combines navigation with a precipitation reporting system that can guide pilots to the optimal locations for their hail suppression missions. The system is complemented by weather observations (including precise times and locations) reported by the local population via a smartphone app as a means of validating weather prediction models. These models constitute an important factor in deciding whether a hail suppression flight is necessary.
trakkies has built the world’s first REAL platform for the Internet of Things (IOT). It enables users to keep better track of belongings, events, tasks, appointments, and more. The start-up has developed IOT nodes with ambient intelligence, a smartphone app, and a back-end cloud system for providing helpful, intuitive services and interacting with people, places, and things. Furthermore, trakkies has designed a novel small-data mechanism that identifies individual people, places, and objects and uses EGNOS signals to create smart location references.
The root cause of the anomaly that sent two Galileo satellites into the wrong orbit on August 22 was a shortcoming in the system thermal analysis performed during stage design, and not an operator error during stage assembly, according to findings by an independent inquiry board.
The independent inquiry board was created by Arianespace, in conjunction with the European Space Agency and the European Commission. Its conclusions draw on data supplied by Russian partners in the program, and are consistent with the final conclusions of the inquiry board appointed by the Russian space agency Roscosmos.
The anomaly occurred during the flight of the launcher’s fourth stage, Fregat, designed and produced by NPO Lavochkin. It occurred about 35 minutes after liftoff, at the beginning of the ballistic phase preceding the second ignition of this stage.
The board’s conclusions confirm that the first part of the mission proceeded nominally, which means that the three-stage Soyuz launcher was not at fault. The inquiry board also eliminated the hypothesis that the anomaly could have been caused by the abnormal behavior of the Galileo satellites.
The scenario that led to an anomaly in the orbital injection of the satellites was precisely reconstructed, as follows:
The orbital error resulted from an error in the thrust orientation of the main engine on the Fregat stage during its second powered phase.
This orientation error was the result of the loss of inertial reference for the stage.
This loss occurred when the stage’s inertial system operated outside its authorized operating envelope, an excursion that was caused by the failure of two of Fregat’s attitude-control thrusters during the preceding ballistic phase.
This failure was due to a temporary interruption of the joint hydrazine propellant supply to these thrusters. The interruption in the flow was caused by freezing of the hydrazine.
The freezing resulted from the proximity of hydrazine and cold helium feed lines, these lines being connected by the same support structure, which acted as a thermal bridge.
Ambiguities in the design documents allowed the installation of this type of thermal “bridge” between the two lines. In fact, such bridges have also been seen on other Fregat stages now under production at NPO Lavochkin.
The design ambiguity is the result of not taking into account the relevant thermal transfers during the thermal analyses of the stage system design.
The system thermal analyses have been reexamined in depth to identify all areas concerned by this issue. The board has chosen these corrective actions for the return to flight.
Revamp of the system thermal analysis.
Associated corrections in the design documents.
Modification of the documents for the manufacture, assembly, integration, and inspection procedures of the supply lines.
Arianespace said these measures can immediately be applied by NPO Lavochkin to the stages already produced, meaning that the Soyuz launcher could be available for its next mission from the Guiana Space Center in December.
“We are looking at the resumption of Soyuz launches from the Guiana Space Center, as early as December 2014,” stated the Arianespace CEO. “The resolution of this anomaly will enable a consolidation of the reliability of Fregat, which had experienced 45 consecutive successes until this mission.”
Galileo Service Controls Handed to GNSS Agency
Full Operability Set for 2020
The European GNSS Agency (GSA) and the European Commission have concluded an agreement that delegates a range of exploitation tasks for Galileo to the GSA, providing a framework and budget for the development of services and operations through 2021.
The signing of the Galileo Exploitation Delegation Agreement serves as an initial step towards the full Galileo Exploitation Phase. According to the governance structure set out in the agreement, the European Commission is responsible for the overall programme supervision, the European Space Agency (ESA) is entrusted with the deployment phase, while the GSA is responsible for the exploitation phase. The GSA’s responsibilities include:
provision and marketing of the services
management, maintenance, continuous improvement, evolution and protection of the space and ground infrastructure
research and development of receiver platforms with innovative features in different application domains
development of future generations of the system
cooperation with other GNSS
all other required activities to ensure the development and smooth running of the system.
“With Galileo, we aim to provide a tangible service to European citizens, and this Delegation Agreement ensures we have the tools and funding necessary to achieve this,” said GSA Executive Director Carlo des Dorides.
Full operability of Galileo is now scheduled for 2020, a slight revision of the previous 2018 projection.
The agreement specifically sets the actions to be implemented, the amount of funding provided, and the conditions for the overall management. The maximum current EU contribution amounts to EUR 490 million, which will cover procurement and grant activities, including the GSA-ESA working arrangements and a programme management reserve, along with related research and development activities. The financing of the full exploitation phase will be confirmed during a mid-term review before the end of 2016.
India Launches Third Satellite and ICD
India successfully launched IRNSS-1C, the third satellite in the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS), on October 16. The satellite was injected to an elliptical orbit of 282.56 x 20,670 kilometers, very close to its intended final geostationary orbit at 83 degrees East longitude.
IRNSS-1C is the third of the seven satellites constituting the space segment of the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System. Tthe first two were launched in July 2013 and April of this year. Both are functioning satisfactorily from their designated geosynchronous orbital positions.
IRNSS is an independent regional navigation satellite system designed to provide position information in the Indian region and 1,500 kilometers around the Indian mainland. IRNSS will provide two types of services: Standard Positioning Services (SPS), provided to all users, and Restricted Services (RS), provided to authorized users. Ground stations have been established in at least 15 locations across India.
The next satellite of the constellation, IRNSS-1D, is scheduled to be launched in the coming months. The full IRNSS constellation of seven satellites is planned to be completed by 2015.
IRNSS ICD Released. In late September, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) released version 1 of the IRNSS Signal in Space Interface Control Document (ICD) for the Standard Positioning Service.
The document provides information on the signals and structures of the IRNSS system, including signal modulations, frequency bands, received power levels, the data structures and their interpretations, and user algorithms.
Registration is required for ICD download access at a new IRNSS website.
JAVAD Tracks Signal. JAVAD GNSS published a chart showing that it has tracked the IRNSS L5 signal.
Shortly after ISRO released its IRNSS Signal in Space Interface Control Document (ICD), JAVAD GNSS tracked the L5 BPSK signal from both 1A and 1B satellites. Ability to track IRNSS L5 will be added to all JAVAD L5-capable receivers in the near future, the company said.
SNR of two passes of 1A satellite (IGSO) over Moscow.
Let’s All Be GPS III for Halloween
As this magazine goes to press on October 23, the U.S. Air Force is set to launch the eighth GPS IIF satellite from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Wednesday, October 29. An 18-minute launch window will open at 1:21 p.m. U.S. Eastern time. If all goes well, the satellite will be accomplishing its early-orbit checkouts and beginning maneuvers towards its final orbital plane as U.S. children make their costumed Halloween rounds, collecting candy. Other Western countries celebrate All Hallows’ Eve followed by All Saints’ Day on November 1.
Pravda is reporting that the United States refused to negotiate with Russia to deploy GLONASS ground on its territory, citing an interview with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin.
Rogozin stressed that no negotiations were taking place. “We have made a statement in the spring. I offered to initiate talks with the United States to deploy GLONASS infrastructure in their territory, as long as negotiations go, hang the existence of infrastructure GPS stations on the territory of the Russian Federation,” Rogozin said.
Russian specialists are excluding use of the GPS stations on Russian territory for military purposes, he said, adding that he would not reveal how this was accomplished.
“I will not expand on how we did it for obvious reasons, but we did it,” said Rogozin. “We do not want to cut off the nose to spite our face to deprive our users of the ability to work with GLONASS and GPS. Why should we create fewer opportunities for our own people? But we have completely destroyed any prospect, even an indirect one, for the use of the American navigation system for our high-precision guidance weapons,” said the official.
At the same time, it was reported that Russia and China would discuss possible joint projects in the field of space exploration. According to Rogozin, the two countries cooperate in the field of space, working on “possible joint projects in the field of space exploration.” The official said that China and Russia were having a “pretty tumultuous relationship,” and “we would like to say a big thank you to Western countries for their active development.”
