GPS System Integration Design and Test

Higher Timing Accuracy, Lower Cost

Aiden Morrison — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:16:26 +0300

Inside a typical GNSS receiver, the estimate of the error in the local oscillator is formed as a component of the navigation solution, which is in turn based on the output of each satellite-tracking channel propagating its estimate of carrier and code measurements to a common future point. But this method limits the resolution with which the noise of the local oscillator can be quantified. To...

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The System: Galileo Slips, EGNOS Operates

GPS World Staff — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 23:12:58 +0300

Four Galileo in-orbit validation (IOV) satellites scheduled to launch next year have already missed their first pad date.The European version of Russia’s Soyuz rocket is now scheduled to carry the four IOV satellites into orbit in two launches in November 2010 and early 2011, as announced by European Space Agency (ESA) Director-General Jean-Jacques Dordain on October 9.

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PNT Advisory Board Announces Agenda for Sixth Meeting

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:55:49 +0300

The National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, And Timing (PNT) Advisory Board will hold its sixth meeting November 5-6 in Alexandria, Virginia. Thursday’s agenda includes an update on GPS, PNT policy, and executive committee expectations, presented by Col. Robert Hessin, acting director of the National Coordination Office for Space-Based PNT.

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L-3 Telemetry-West to Provide Satellite Test Software for GPS III

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 23:05:52 +0300

L-3 Telemetry-West (L-3 TW), a division of L-3 Communications, announced today that it has signed a contract with Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company (LMSSC) to supply a Command, Control, Communications, and Monitor (C3M) system used in factory testing on the GPS III Program. The C3M software is based on L-3 TW’s InControl software product, which supports satellite test and on-orbit operations.

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Innovation: Improving Dilution of Precision

Dennis Milbert — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:02:50 +0300

GPS receivers must deal with measurements and models that have some degree of error, which gets propagated into the position solution. If the errors are systematically different for the different simultaneous pseudoranges, as is typically the case when trying to correct for ionospheric and tropospheric effects, these errors propagate into the receiver solution in a way that is fundamentally...

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Expert Advice: GPS Constellation Maxed Out at 30

Richard B. Langley — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 01:34:01 +0300

It appears that the GPS satellite constellation has a glass ceiling, so to speak. GPS was designed as a 24-satellite constellation, with four satellites in six orbital planes arranged to provide maximum observability around the globe. According to the government’s Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing website, “The U.S. government is committed to provide a minimum of 24 operational GPS...

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Out in Front: An SVN up for Grabs

Alan Cameron — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 01:27:28 +0300

Wednesday evening, September 23, Savannah, Georgia, 5:30 to 7:00 p.m., Session P2b — a date that will live in GPS history. The 400 to 600 of us who were there to witness it will never forget it. The SVN49 Review Panel. Unprecedented puts it mildly.

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Canine Search-and-Rescue App Takes Galileo Master Prize

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:06:03 +0300

Search-and-rescue application Osmógrafo won the Galileo Master prize of the 2009 European Satellite Navigation Competition October 21 at an awards ceremony at Munich Residence in Germany. Eight special topic prizes and 17 regional honors were awarded along with the €20,000 grand prize, all of which are designed to recognize the best GNSS application innovations of the year.

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Administration Ax Falls on PNT Backup, Loran-C

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:59:06 +0300

On October 28, President Barrack Obama signed into law a bill that effectively sounds the death knell for the best hope for a GPS back-up, a system that might have prevented national and industrial infrastructure breakdown in the event of various probable disruptions, interference, or intentional jamming.

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Angela Dorsey of JPL: Tracking and Data Relay Satellite Services

Alan Cameron — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 19:03:50 +0300

Angela Dorsey of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory talks about her IAIN presentation on results from a JPL-created Blackjack GPS receiver aboard the JASON-1 satellite launched last year.

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