A White Paper published by GSA provides developers with in-depth information on accessing and using GNSS raw measurements with Android, to implement advanced GNSS techniques in mass-market devices.
Google’s announcement that GNSS raw measurements would be made available from Android 7.0 devices (i.e., Nougat) marked the first-time developers had access to carrier and code measurements and decoded navigation messages from a mass-market device. Read more…
Two of the four Galileo satellites shown inside the S1A payload preparation facility. VA244
Payload preparations have begun for Arianespace’s next Ariane 5 mission in support of Europe’s Galileo global navigation system, with two of the four satellites for launch on this July 2018 flight now undergoing their checkout at the Spaceport.
These two spacecraft arrived at French Guiana’s Félix Eboué Airport earlier this month aboard a 747 cargo jetliner, and were then unloaded and transported by road to the Spaceport’s S1A payload preparation facility. The third and fourth Galileo satellites will be delivered to the equatorial launch base in June. Read more…
The four Galileo satellites launched on December 12 have successfully transitioned from Early Orbit Phase to In Orbit Testing.
On December 12, four Galileo satellites started their journey on an Ariane 5 rocket from the European Spaceport in Kourou. Shortly after leaving the rocket, the satellites – named Nicole, Zofia, Alexandre and Irina – reached stable configuration and established first contact with Earth.
This launch marked the first time that the European GNSS Agency (GSA) was responsible for the Early Orbit Phase (EOP) of the mission. EOP is one of the most important phases of a space mission as it positions the satellites into the correct orbits and gradually switches on and tests the first elements. For example, just days after the launch, the four satellites were transitioned from sun acquisition mode to Earth tracking mode, also known as nominal operational mode (NOM). In this mode, the satellites point to the Earth with all antennas oriented towards the ground. Read more…
EGNOS V3 Contract signing
The next generation of Europe’s satellite navigation overlay service, EGNOS, will combine use of GPS and Galileo signals to improve accuracy and robustness of navigation for air traffic and other uses where lives are at stake.
A contract was signed on 26th January at ESA’s technical centre in the Netherlands for the second generation of the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service, EGNOS V3, planned to enter service in 2025. Read more…
For fully autonomous driving to become reality, several technologies will have to reach maturity and be rolled out in concert. One of them is affordable, scalable, and reliable high precision positioning.
The past decades have seen substantial improvements in the performance of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) technology. In the early 2000s, the time it took to get a first accurate position went from minutes to under thirty seconds. In the latter half of the decade, receiver sensitivity improved dramatically – from -130 dBm to -167 dBm. By 2015, the number of functional positioning satellite constellations had gone from one global constellation in 2000 (the USA’s GPS) to four (GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou, and Galileo). This opened the doors to multi-constellation GNSS receivers. The satellite signals, too, have been modernized, and as of 2018, multi-band GNSS will become affordable. These advances set the stage for the next big theme in GNSS: achieving decimeter- or centimeter-level accuracy. Read more…
Astronaut Scott Kelly has spent a total of 520 days in space in his lifetime
Space is a dangerous and unforgiving place, and spending time away from gravity takes its toll on the human body, as many astronauts have found out after returning to Earth.
But what exactly are the risks?
Japanese astronaut Norishige Kanai this week may have briefly grabbed news headlines by announcing he had stretched a staggering 9cm in just three weeks onboard the International Space Station (ISS).
He later admitted he had miscalculated the figure and it was actually just 2cm, but significant height changes are actually normal for astronauts spending time in space. Read more…
Imagine the following: a technical incident occurs on a long-haul commercial flight. The aircraft’s computer identifies the root cause of the problem and activates a distress beacon while the plane is still en route. It sends out a distress signal, picked up by the special payloads on certain navigation satellites (including Galileo), which retransmit these signals to a ground station, called the Local User Terminal (LUT). This terminal receives and processes the warning message, calculates the position of the transmitter based on certain characteristics of the received signal, and sends this data to the Mission Control Center. The MCC then passes on this information to Rescue Coordination Centers (RCC), which are in charge of launching rescue operations by calling on the appropriate organizations. In other words, while the aircraft is still in flight, the entire rescue process is already set up. Read more…