Washington View: OCX Program Restructured, Delayed Again

Details are emerging about another restructuring of the contract for the new GPS ground system, a deal that pushes completion of the project back another two years and recasts the remaining work to fit within the Air Force's strained financial profile.

Called the Next Generation Operational Control System, or OCX, the new ground system involves a rebuilding nearly from scratch of the infrastructure that monitors and controls the GPS satellite constellation. Project terms call for prime contractor Raytheon to replace or refresh all the hardware and software at the Master Control Station at Schriever Air Force Base, Colorado, and the Alternate Master Control Station at Vandenberg Air Force Base as well as upgrading four legacy antennas and 17 monitoring stations scattered around the world. The company will also install all new hardware and software into an existing building at Schriever to create a transition software facility. (more)

India Space Officials Release IRNSS ICD

A signal-in-space (SIS) interface control document (ICD) for the standard positioning service (SPS) of the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) is available for download from the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) website.

The 70-page document addresses the signal modulations, frequency bands, received power levels, data structures and other details of the IRNSS open signal. Dated June 2014, the IRNSS SIS ICD for SPS was recently released to the public to provide essential information on the IRNSS signal-in-space and to facilitate research as well as development and commercial use of the IRNSS signals for navigation-based applications. (more)

FAA Begins Opening Airspace to Unmanned Aircraft as NextGen, ADS-B Draw Fresh Scrutiny

On September 25, U.S. aviation officials Thursday for the first time approved the use of unmanned aircraft for commercial filming in the United States, opening the door to what is expected to be a slow-building gold rush to the skies.

Six companies received exemptions from the existing rules, which generally ban the commercial use of unmanned aerial systems or UAS. The exemptions were granted to RC Pro Productions Consulting LLC dba Vortex Aerial, Aerial MOB LLC, Astraeus Aeria, HeliVideo Productions LLC, Pictorvision Inc., and Snaproll Media LLC (more)

Kingfisher: Setting Sail with GNSS-Guided Robotics

Ontario's Clearpath Robotics and sister company Echostream Environmental Data Systems are creating advanced autonomous vehicles with sensors and dual-frequency GNSS and inertial technologies for academic research and real-world bathymetry. (more)

GNSS Hotspots

Stop the Car! Northwest Passage. Journal of the Plague Year. Foreign Entanglements. Better together? (more)

Thinking Aloud: A Learning Experience

The Galileo satellite launch failure is not really an unmitigated disaster, and in the long run several good things will probably come out of this. (more)