Blogging on the Galileo Navigation System

NavSAS Group on GPS WORLD Top Story!

2012-01-23T17:32:00.001+01:00

The news about the acquisition and tracking of the second Galileo IOV Satellite by the NavSAS researchers is on GPS World!
Here the link to the news.

Inside GNSS quotes the NavSAS Lab!

2011-12-13T10:37:00.005+01:00

Inside GNSS quotes the NavSAS Lab in the news dedicated to the acquisition of the signals from Galileo satellites:

"The Navigation Signal Analysis and Simulation (NavSAS) group at the Politecnico di Torino, Italy, provided the accompanying figure, which shows the 2D search space in the vicinity of the acquisition peak in the NavSYS receiver processing the FM2 signal’s E1b data channel on Galileo PRN11. The coherent integration time used to obtain this search space was four milliseconds, coupled with 11 non-coherent accumulations."

GALILEO SIGNALS ACQUIRED!

2011-12-12T15:51:00.002+01:00

New Galileo Satellites - Experiment on Galileo Signals Acquisition December 12, 2011. Today, the two Galileo IOV satellites started transmitting their payload signals. The NavSAS Researchers were able to acquire and track these E1 signals (PRN 11 from Galileo OS ICD) starting from 14.55 CET, using a fixed rooftop antenna (a professional active antenna, located at ISMB premises in Torino @ latitude = 45°03'54.98767" N, longitude = 7°39'32.28920" E, height = 311.9667 m) the software receiver N-Gene and some MATLAB® routines. On www.navsas.eu you may find the graphical results of this “historical” data acquisition.

European Commission supports Galileo Programme

2011-12-01T16:27:00.001+01:00

A press release from the European Commission confirms that Europe will try to fund the Galileo and EGNOS systems in the next years.

Brussels, 30 November 2011 – The European Commission has proposed today the new framework for the financing and governance of the two European satellite navigation programmes Galileo and EGNOS (GPS signal augmentation) for the period 2014-2020. The Commission proposes to earmark €7.0 billions to guarantee the completion of the EU satellite navigation infrastructure and to ensure the exploitation of the systems until 2020, such as the operations of the space and terrestrial infrastructures, the necessary replenishment/replacement activities, certification procedures, and notably the provision of services. The proposal also recalls that the Union remains the owner of the systems. Therefore the management of the programmes' exploitation should be delegated to the European GNSS Agency while management of the programmes' deployment should be delegated to the European Space Agency.

Vice President Antonio Tajani, responsible for industry and entrepreneurship said: “A lot has been achieved by both Galileo and EGNOS. Looking to the bright future ahead the key message of financial stability for these flagship programmes is of paramount importance so that European industry and citizens can reap all their benefits. Both Galileo and EGNOS are strongly contributing to our industrial competiveness and innovation in key sectors with great economic potential. The increase of our know-how satellite navigation technology and service will significantly support European industry in these difficult times.”

General information on Galileo, see MEMO/11/717

Workshop on “Unmanned Aerial Systems: Civilian Applications and Technology Challenges”

2011-11-09T14:57:00.000+01:00

Prof. Letizia Lo Presti has been invited at the International workshop “Unmanned Aerial Systems: Civilian Applications and Technology Challenges”. The workshop is organized by Politecnico di Torino and will be held on the 9th and 10th of November. Prof. Letizia Lo Presti will present the most important results achieved by the NavSAS research group within the SMAT-F1 project, as a proof of the excellent work performed by the joint team ISMB/Politecnico.

SMAT-F1

Research project funded by the Regione Piemonte (Italy) and promoted through the Piedmont's aerospace district promoter board. It is also co-funded by European Regional Development Fund (E.R.D.F.) within the Regional Operative Program 2007/2013.

SMAT is leaded by Alenia Aeronautica S.p.A., with the major goal of developing an advanced civilian system for land monitoring. The final system will deploy a small fleet of UAVs and will represent an important infrastructure for emergency management in case of flood hazards, mudslides or fire in wooded remote areas. The NavSAS group supported the activities related to GNSS and fostered, through real measurements, the use of GPS+Galileo software radio receivers on board of the next generation of UAV.

New Galileo Satellites - Experiment on Galileo Signals Acquisition

2011-11-02T18:21:00.005+01:00

After a long delay, the first two satellites of the Galileo constellation have been launched from French Guyana on October the 21st using a Soyuz launcher.
Those satellites, and the other two that will be launched in January 2012, will be used for the In Orbit Validation - IOV phase of the Galileo Project. "This quartet of satellites, built by a consortium led by EADS Astrium Germany, will form the operational nucleus of the full Galileo satnav constellation. They combine the best atomic clock ever flown for navigation – accurate to one second in three million years – with a powerful transmitter to broadcast precise navigation signals." ESA says.
For this historic moment, ESA set up a dedicated website with all the information available.

NavSAS researchers are setting up an experiment in order to receive the new Galileo signals as soon as they will be transmitted by the satellites. In the meanwhile the team is monitoring, day by day, the public available information about the satellites orbits.
In the following figures some screenshots from Orbitron (© by Sebastian Stoff), a free software available at this website, are shown.
In the first figure the current orbits of the two Galileo satellites, denoted as GALILEO-PFM GALILEO-FM2, are visible.

The second figure shows a detailed skyplot simulated in Turin, Italy. Here the Fregat (FREGAT_RB) can also be seen.

You can download from here the predictions of the next satellite passes over Turin.

Launch of the first two Galileo satellites

2011-10-12T11:51:00.002+02:00

After a long delay, the first two satellites of the Galileo constellation will be launched from French Guyana on October the 20th.

Those satellites, and the other two that will be launched in January 2012, will be used for the In Orbit Validation - IOV phase of the Galileo Project. "This quartet of satellites, built by a consortium led by EADS Astrium Germany, will form the operational nucleus of the full Galileo satnav constellation. They combine the best atomic clock ever flown for navigation – accurate to one second in three million years – with a powerful transmitter to broadcast precise navigation signals." ESA says.

The launch will use a Soyuz launcher.

For this historic moment, ESA set up a dedicated website with all the information available.

IOV dispenser (photo from ESA website).

SMAT-F1 project at MNRA

2011-05-05T17:47:00.002+02:00

On Friday the 6th of May, the SMAT-F1 project will be presented at the students of the seventh edition of the Master on Navigation and Related Application. The lecture will take place in the Lingotto facilicities of the Politecnico at 2.00 PM.

Address: Politecnico di Torino @ Lingotto, Via Nizza 230 - Torino, Room 403.

A short description of SMAT-F1

Early Stage Researcher Marie Curie Fellowship Two positions opened at Politecnico di Torino

2011-04-13T10:57:00.006+02:00

Applications are invited for the above posts as part of an exciting Marie Curie Initial Training Network (ITN) funded by the FP7 PEOPLE Program, entitled TRANSMIT – Training Research and Applications Network to Support the Mitigation of Ionospheric Threats. Research will aim to counter the serious problems posed by the Earth’s ionosphere to, principally, Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), in particular when are related to extreme solar events, as frequently reported in the media during times of high sunspot activity. The next solar maximum is predicted for 2013 and TRANSMIT aims to tackle the threat it will pose to GNSS through an integrated program of academic and industrial training, including a comprehensive set of courses and secondments.

The following two positions are opened at POLITECNICO di TORINO. All the info are available here.

Tools for mitigation of effects on GNSS Augmentation systems

Radio Occultation for ionospheric monitoring

Application Deadline: May 16th, 2011

Positions are available from August/September 2011 and will be offered on a fixed-term contract for a period of up to three years.

WE ARE HERE!

2010-10-13T13:33:00.002+02:00

After some months of re-organization, the blog on sat-nav is back!

In the next days news will come again.

Keep in touch!

“GPS Modernization: On the Road to the Future LOCKHEED MARTIN’S GPS IIR/IIRM AND GPS IIIA PROGRAMS” Lecture by Mr. Mike Shaw

2010-02-26T17:08:00.008+01:00

The NavSAS lab and the Master on Navigation and Related Applications are pleased to announce that Mr. Michael Shaw (Director of Global Business Development for Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company) will provide a lecture entitled “GPS Modernization: On the Road to the Future -Lockheed Martin’s GPS IIR/IIRM and GPS IIIA Programs” on Monday, March 15th 2010 at Politecnico di Torino. This historical moment is important for satellite navigation systems, Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSSs): GPS system is facing an important upgrade and the market for satellite navigation is experiencing a phase of strong expansion. In addition, new satellite navigation systems, like Galileo, are becoming real. Mr. M. Shaw, thanks to his experience, is in a unique position to provide a competent opinion on the future of GPS and on the evolution of the other GNSSs. The lecture is open to the public. It will be hosted in the aula 10 I of the Politecnico di Torino (Via Boggio 61, Turin – corte interrata). The lecture, held in English, will last from 9:15AM to 1:00PM.

The agenda is available at this link.

Mr. Shaw is the Director of Global Business Development for Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company. He leads strategy and implementation efforts associated with Navigation Systems advocacy for Lockheed Martin in identifying markets, opportunities, and the feasibility of product development. In addition, he performs economic analyses for new or improved product opportunities in identifying and implementing business development projects. Previously, Mr. Shaw was the Director of the National Coordination Office for Space-based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) where he coordinated the implementation of the U.S. 2004 U.S. National Policy on Space-based PNT. Previously, he served in U.S. Departments of Transportation and Defense, as well as the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, where he developed and coordinated policy, planning, and strategy for GPS.

NavSAS participation at IGNSS 2009 Conference

2009-12-16T14:40:00.010+01:00

The IGNSS 2009 conference took place in Surfers Paradise (Queensland, AUSTRALIA) from 1 December to 3 December; it has been a great experience of scientific growth, discussion and networking with the best people in the world dealing with Satellite Navigation.

The NavSAS team had the chance to present 7 papers (eventually all the alternates became oral presentations).

Russia launched new GLONASS satellites

2009-12-16T10:19:00.004+01:00

Despite the economic crisis, Russia is still pushing hard on the GLONASS refurbishing program. On monday 14th three GLONASS satellites were launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in central Kazakhstan.

Another launch is expected in February 2010.

Source InsideGNSS

Ceremony for the end of the fifth edition of the Master on Navigation and Related Applications

2009-09-17T16:59:00.002+02:00

On Monday, 21st September there will be the graduation exercises of the fifth Master on Navigation and Related Applications. The Ceremony will be at 14.30 in the Lingotto campus of the Politecnico (via Nizza 230, Torino).

China and the Compass-Galileo overlay problem

2009-09-07T09:32:00.008+02:00

Galileo and Compass should have some frequency overlay. GPS world reports that Yuanxi Yang, from the China National Administration of GNSS and Applications (CNAGA) showed plans to move Compass signal modulation to binary offset carrier (BOC) , with an AltBOC(15,10) open service (OS) signal in the aeronautical radionavigation band at Ein the E5 band (centered at 1191.795 MHz and reserved to aeronautical radionavigation services).

The whole chinese presentation is available at the following link.
(Images credit: GPS World)

GPS signal anomalies

2009-07-21T16:09:00.005+02:00

InsideGNSS reports an interesting news on the SVN49 anomaly. In the article Tim Springer and Florian Dilssner, GNSS engineers in the Navigation Support Office of the European Space Operations Center (ESOC), described the effects of the anomaly as well as the U.S. Air Force’s initial attempts to solve the problem by altering the broadcast satellite orbital positions and time. (Figure from InsideGNSS)

NavSAS on the Skyspark

2009-06-12T20:28:00.022+02:00

NavSAS is involved in the SkySpark adventure! The goal of the SkySpark project is to design and build a complete “ecological” aircraft. All systems will be entirely electrically powered in order to set a new world record (the aircraft will fly over 500 km at an average speed of 300 km/h).

(In the photo Maurizio Cheli, former astronaut and Eurofighter pilot, and Khalid Charqane, NavSAS researcher).

On 12 June, the pilot Maurizio Cheli managed to fly during 8 mn reaching a top speed of 250 km/h, a world record. The Pioneer Alpi 300 is powered by a 75-kW electric motor using brushless technology and lithium polymer batteries. The team will now focus on the next goal: the hydrogen fuel cells powered engine.

NavSAS joined the project with its mapper device, providing a real 3 dimensional mapping of the SkySpark. In the following video you can see the test flight of the SkySpark in 3D trough a Google Earth layer.

IGNSS 2009 - Call for Papers

2009-05-25T10:25:00.012+02:00

The IGNSS Society is a not for profit association incorporated in Queensland, Australia.Australia is seen internationally as having a history of stability, from a Governmentand from an economic point of view, thus making it very desirable as a potentialsouthern hemisphere satellite navigation partner.Australia, not having a satellite navigation system of its own, can truly beconsidered as a totally independent, neutral country, suitable for openand frank discussions regarding applications development on all satellite navigation systems.
The International Global Navigation Satellite Systems (IGNSS) Society Inc. is pleased to announce the IGNSS 2009 symposium on GPS/GNSS that will beheld from Tuesday 1 December to Thursday 3 December, 2009 at the HolidayInn, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. A trade exhibition, which will be open from Tuesday 1 December toThursday 3 December 2009, is included in the Symposium registration.The call for papers is open.

NavSAS won the Zucca Prize

2009-05-14T09:35:00.004+02:00

Premio Zucca - Zucca prize 2008 is dedicated to innovative ICT solutions developed by young researchers in Piedmont and Liguria regions. Fabrizio Dominici, from NavSAS Group, won the first prize of Premio Zucca 2008. Fabrizio presented a project named: Sistema Galileo/EGNOS a supporto delle squadre di soccorso alpino. Ricerca e Sviluppo Tecnologico Innovativo Applicato - Galileo/EGNOS support for alpine rescue operations. Research and Innovative Applied Technology Development.

Simone Savasta, another young researcher from the NavSAS Group, won another prize with a research on the Stazioni di monitoraggio interferenti per applicazioni GNSS - Monitoring interfering stations for GNSS applications.

UN/Azerbaijan/ESA/USA Workshop on the Applications of GNSS

2009-05-11T11:39:00.011+02:00

The United Nations/Azerbaijan/European Space Agency/United States of America Workshop on the Applications of Global Navigation Satellite Systems is hosted in Baku, Azerbaijan, 11 - 15 May 2009.

The workshop addresses the space technology applications such as: remote sensing, precision agriculture, aviation, transport and communications, and e-learning. The workshop aims at initiating pilot projects and strengthening the networking in the region. This workshop also addresses the areas of natural resources management and environmental monitoring by applying GNSS technologies to thematic mapping, forest management and water resources management.

NavSAS participated at the "Session 5: Education and training on GNSS".G. Povero presented the GNSS education activities in ISMB.

NavSAS at ENC GNSS 2009

2009-05-07T14:08:00.011+02:00

The European Group of Institutes of Navigation (EUGIN) organizes a yearly European Navigation Conference - Global Navigation Satellite Systems (ENC-GNSS), which is hosted by a different EUGIN country member every year. ENC GNSS 2009 taked place on May 3-6 2009 at the Parthenope University of Naples, Italy, hosted by Istituto Italiano di Navigazione (IIN).

NavSAS group participated with several contributions based on its R&D activities.

China launched the second Compass satellite

2009-04-15T11:46:00.026+02:00

Yesterday, April 14th 2009, China launched its second Compass satellite from the Xichang Satellite Launching Centre in southwest Sichuan province. The Chinese press agency Xinhua says that previous reports said China planed to complete its independent global satellite navigation system by launching about 30 more orbiters before 2015, with 10 navigation satellites into the space in 2009 and 2010. The current Compass system only provides regional navigation service within China and neighboring regions.
[In the figure, the launch with a Long March 3C carrier rocket. Credit: Xinhua]

The new GPS L5 signal

2009-04-15T09:47:00.010+02:00

The new GPS IIR-20(M) satellite started to transmit on the L5 frequency band. This is the third GPS civilian signal. It should improve the GPS accuracy and it should be used for safety of life applications. US Air Force reports that this broadcast brings into use the GPS International Telecommunication Union filing at 1176.45 MHz in the highly protected and co-allocated Radio Navigation Satellite Service and Aeronautical Radio Navigation Service band.

The Figure shows the time series and power spectrum of the L5 demonstration signal. [Credit Air Force - Los Angeles Air Force Base]

Prof. Jade Morton gave a lecture to the NavSAS

2009-04-02T09:51:00.006+02:00

On 1st of April, Prof. Jade Morton gave a lecture to the NavSAS lab , to the Master on Navigation and the Politecnico di Torino students: "Recent Research Activities in Position, Location, and Navigation at Miami University."

Dr. Jade Morton is an Associate Professor in Electrical Engineering and Pincipal Investigator of the Signal Processing and Navigation Laboratory at Miami University in Ohio, USA.
The presentation outlined some of the recent research efforts in achieving high accuracy and high sensitivity GPS performances and non-GPS based sensor technologies for position and navigation applications at Miami University. In particular, Prof. Morton highlighted several example projects including assessment of higher order ionosphere errors, short delay time GPS multipath detection, GPS and ultra-wideband OFDM signal co-existance, and a few student-initiated navigation sensor integration projects.

SEAGAL Kick Off Meeting

2009-03-24T18:08:00.006+01:00

Today, 24th March, the Istituto Superiore Mario Boella (ISMB), in Turin - Italy, hosted the kick off meeting of the SEAGAL project.

All the partners were proactive and had a fuitful exchange of ideas with the GSA officier. SEAGAL is now fully operative. Good luck SEAGAL!!!

SEAGAL project

2009-03-13T16:54:00.006+01:00

SEAGAL, South-East Asia centre on European GNSS for international cooperation And Local development, is a project funded by the European Union under the European Commission's Seventh Research Framework programme (FP7). SEAGAL is started in March 2009. The kick-off meeting will take place in Turin, Italy, on 23-25 March. The main objective of the project is the definition of an implementation plan for a European GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) Collaboration Center in support of educational, commercial and technical needs in South-East Asia. The Collaboration Center will be set up in Vietnam. Satellite navigation is a crucial technology for the European Union. Despite the worldwide crisis, the area is dynamic and in the future it “will increasingly be one of the most dynamic growth engines of the world economy”.

The plan for the creation of the Collaboration Center foresees also accompanying awareness actions to facilitate the start-up of the Center and its visibility. The Collaboration Centre will start its operation at the end of the project. SEAGAL involves two asian Universities, the Vietnamese Hanoi University of Technology (HUT) and the Thai Asia Institute of Technology (AIT), and two European Universities, the Spanish Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) and the French Universite, Franche-Comte (UFC). The project is focused on Vietnam and Thailand but the aim is to start a fruitful cooperation with the whole South East Asian countries.

NavSAS will coordinate the whole project.

1st ESA GNSS Education Workshop

2009-03-13T12:21:00.003+01:00

NavSAS participated to the 1st ESA GNSS Education Workshop. The workshop aimed to underline the growing importance of Education on GNSS subjects in Europe. GNSS is a growing technology both from the academic and the economic point of view. NavSAS presented its effort on GNSS education:

Master on Navigation and Related Applications
Navkit
N-Gene, the GNSS software receiver
SAT-SURF Suite, the SAT-SURF hardware and the SAT-SURFER software
The dissemination actvities, such as conferences, the NavSAS website, and the Galileo Blog www.galileoblog.eu

ICG workshop on interoperability towards Munich Satellite Navigation Summit

2009-03-02T15:43:00.003+01:00

Today and tomorrow, 2-3 March 2009, the working group on compatibility and interoperability of the International Committee on GNSS (ICG) is convening a workshop involving system providers, equipment manufacturers, and the user community focused on the interoperability of global and regional navigation satellite systems and satellite-based augmentations from the user’s perspective.

The meeting will immediately precede the Munich Satellite Navigation Summit 2009, in Germany.

Applications for the Master in NAVIGATION AND RELATED APPLICATIONS 2009/2010 are now open!

2009-02-18T16:22:00.002+01:00

Applications for the Master in NAVIGATION AND RELATED APPLICATIONS 2009/2010 are now open!
The II Level Specializing Master on Navigation and Related Applications is a joint initiative of Politecnico di Torino and Istituto Superiore Mario Boella (ISMB) with the collaboration of Istituto Elettrotecnico Nazionale Galileo Ferraris (IEN) and the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UN-OOSA).

For more informations go to this link.

GLONASS is operational again within Russia

2009-02-09T10:19:00.004+01:00

ITAR-TASS news agency reports that GLONASS satellite system is again operational within Russian territory. At the beginning of February, the system has 20 satellites, including 18 operative. The news agency says: "Eighteen operative satellites are necessary for GLONASS coverage of whole Russia, and 24 for coverage of the whole world." GLONASS is still under refurbishment but the worldwide coverage should be reached in the next few years.

Google Latitude: LBS for all

2009-02-05T10:57:00.003+01:00

Location Based Services (LBS) are becoming popular, now even for the masses. Google launched Latitude, a new and easy to use LBS service designed for the Google Maps Mobile, iGoogle and Google Gears. Whit this application every logged-in user can see the approximate location of his contacts who have decided to share their location with him, and vice versa. Latitude is interactive, users can communicate via SMS, Google Talk, Gmail, or by updating their status message.

And the privacy? Google says that everything about Latitude is opt-in. Every user not only controls exactly who gets to see his location, but he also decides the location that his contacts see.

2008 Federal Radionavigation Plan

2009-02-03T16:05:00.004+01:00

The US Federal Government published the 2008 Federal Radionavigation Plan, available on the PNT website. The document is prepared jointly by the Department of Defense (DOD), Homeland Security (DHS), and Transportation (DOT) with the assistance of other government agencies.

The plan includes all the information about the policies, the radionavigation system user requirements, the system descriptions and the operating plans of the US GNSS infrastructures.

SkySpark: the eco-friendly record aircraft

2009-01-29T11:36:00.009+01:00

The SkySpark project was officially launched yesterday in Turin. The goal is to design and build a complete “ecological” aircraft in order to set a world record. All systems will be entirely electrically powered.

The project is supported by several private sponsors, by the Politecnico di Torino and by the Local Government. The aim is to set a world speed record for the category (initial computations set 300 Km/h). The whole system is powered by an hydrogen fuel-cell, about 65kW. The project coordinator and the SkySpark's pilot is the italian astronaut Maurizio Cheli.

NavSAS is actively cooperating for the navigation issues. NavSAS will use its technology to provide an accurate positioning of the plane during the tests and the record attempt.

The new GSA virtual library

2009-01-29T10:12:00.003+01:00

The new GSA virtual library is available on the GSA website. The service aims to provide an easy-to-use computer interface for simple or advanced searches via the internet on Galileo and EGNOS-related information and research projects.

NavSAS at Growing Galileo

2009-01-26T16:02:00.004+01:00

NavSAS Group will massively participate at the Growing Galileo 2009. The conference is promoted by the GSA and it will take place in Brussels, on 27-28 January 2009.

The GSA website says that the second call for Galileo and EGNOS project proposals under the European Commission’s 7th Research Framework Programme (FP7) will target a wide variety of sectors and wider SME participation. Of the €40 million in funding available for the second call, around €28 million will be allocated to collaborative projects, €11 million to tenders (launched later in 2009), and €1 million to administrative and technical support in relation to developing Galileo and EGNOS services. The money will be allocated to projects promoting growth in the use of Galileo and EGNOS services in the open, commercial and regulated sectors. The proposals should demonstrate the benefits and efficiency of satellite navigation technology. The focus is on research with a short time to market as to maximise impact of the programme in the short term.

EU and Latin America togheter in satellite navigation

2009-01-23T10:19:00.003+01:00

EU is increasing the effort to develop its collaboration with Latin America. Argentina and Brazil are the most active countries in space applications. A new Galileo station is planned to be located in Cordoba, Argentina.

Since the end of 2005, the Galileo Information Centre (GIC) for Latin America has been working to raise awareness of the co-operation opportunities available and to promote collaboration under the Galileo umbrella. Further information is available in the news section of GSA website.

Compass System should be available by 2015

2009-01-22T10:47:00.002+01:00

China continues the development of its GNSS, named Compass. GPS World says that China will send into the space 10 navigation satellites in 2009 and even in 2010. The whole system should be ready by 2015, with at least 30 satellites on-line and worldwide coverage.

In 2000, China started to build a regional system, Beidou. Today it has 4 geostationary satellites providing a navigation service on China's territory. Compass is the evolution of this system, but it is based on MEO satellites. The first Compass satellite was launched in 2007.

ICG3 presentations available on the UNOOSA website

2009-01-19T09:44:00.007+01:00

The presentations made at the Third Meeting of ICG (International Committee on Global Navigation Satellite Systems, hosted in Pasadena USA in December 2008, are now posted on the UNOOSA website.

The presentations contain the most updated information on all the GNSS/SBAS systems and their development. Some presentations are useful to understand the evolution of GNSS technology and its impact on the economy and the society.

NavSAS at CCNC 2009

2009-01-13T11:41:00.006+01:00

Today Fabio Dovis chaired a special session at the Consumer Communications and Networking Conference (CCNC) 2009 in Las Vegas. The Session is named Beyond GPS - Where Navigation meets Consumer Communications. It was organized as a change to investigate the boundaries between Navigation and Positioning and mass market communications and to explore how positioning technologies can enable innovative applications. The session hosted 5 full papers and 1 short paper:

Short Baseline Propagation Characteristics of Deterministic Wireless Fingerprinting Systems for Localisation presented by Andrew Dempster , from University of New South Wales, (AU);
Towards Location Based QoS-Aware Network Selection Mechanism for the Nomadic Mobile Services presented by Pravin Pawar of the University of Twente, NL;
NAV/COM Hybrid Architecture for Innovative Location Based Payment Systems presented by Massimiliano Spelat of ISMB, IT);
Navigation Using Environmental Constraints presented by Yiming Ji (University of South Carolina Beaufort, US);
Location Privacy Enforcement in a Location-Based Services Platform presented by John Buford (Avaya Labs Research, US);
Assessing the Energy Efficiency of Localization in Wireless Sensor Networks (short paper) presented by Dominik Lieckfeldt (University of Rostock, DE).

U.S. Presentations from ICG-3 available on the PNT website

2009-01-12T14:51:00.004+01:00

The U.S. Presentations from ICG-3 in Pasadena,USA, are available on the PNT website. The presentations provide a complete and up to date overview on the USA GNSS activities. The other presentations should be available soon on the UNOOSA website.

ESA Astronaut Maurizio Cheli visited the NaVSAS Lab

2008-12-23T16:32:00.005+01:00

On 22th December, the Astronaut Maurizio Cheli visited the NaVSAS Lab. The NaVSAS showed him its latest achievements and its technological improvements on GNSS receivers.

Cheli is an astronaut from the European Space Agency. Cheli is is one of the few licensed to fly the NASA Space Shuttle. He flew on it during the STS-75 mission in 1996. Cheli now pilots the Eurofighter Typhoon and he is developing a hydrogen powered aeroplane.

NaVSAS presents the Paths Project

2008-12-18T10:12:00.019+01:00

NavSAS presented the Paths Project funded by Alcotra, a European project dedicated to the Alpine regions. The aim of the project is to develop a new and cheap way to map mountain paths with a relevant accuracy. The project uses commercial GPS receivers and an user-friendly interface. Usually, GPS facilities for high-precision mapping are expensive and they require trained staff.

High-reliable GPS trails of mountain pathways are fundamental to creat a public land register. The kwoledge of those paths is a resource both for the economic growht of the alpine areas and for a better management of the emergences.

The Low-Cost Mobile Mapper prototype, developed by the NavSAS Group, should cost about 200€ but provides high performances. The system uses both wi-fi and professional VHF radio to send the raw GPS data to a local element. Then, the data are post-processed to make a high-reliable GPS trail.

The test succeeded. The NavSAS mapper made a GPS trail in real time. In every moment the Mappers were connected to a master control station via VHF. Their position was viewable on a GIS cartography tool. The test was particularly hard because the mountains in Piedmont were hit by severe snowstorms in these days!

The Paths Project uses a rugged PDA to display pieces information and positioning. This kind of device is perfect both for tourists and for the mappers. Thanks to the NavSAS prototype, local institutions can map mountain paths with a low cost but high precise GPS mapper. In particular, the mapper is easy to use, so even volunteers or not trained personnel can use it.

For more informations contact us at info@navsas.eu

ICG 2008: PNT presentations

2008-12-11T11:47:00.004+01:00

All the presentations delivered by the U.S. delegation at the ICG in Pasadena are available on the PNT website. Some of them provide a really up-to-date overview on the GNSS world: "U.S. Space-Based PNT Programs & Policy","Aviation Considerations for Multi-Constellation GNSS", "Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Promoting GNSS Applications".

ICG 2008: 10th of December

2008-12-11T10:06:00.004+01:00

Prof. Letizia Lo Presti, from Politecnico di Torino and NaVSAS research leader, presented at the ICG 2008 the "Educational Tools for GNSS" ideated by the Politecnico di Torino and by the NavSAS Group.

Prof. Lo presti highlighted the importance of the Master on Navigation and Related Applications and of the NAVKIT, the multimedia education tool developed under the ERIG framework (a European Union project dedicated to the education in the GNSS field). Last but not least, she talked about the SAT-SURF Suite (SAT-SURF hardware + SAT-SURFER software), developed by the NaVSAS Group for "real" training on GNSS.

NaVSAS participation at the APRASAF-15 Meeting

2008-12-10T11:20:00.012+01:00

Gabriella Povero and Gustavo Belforte, from NavSAS Group, are participating to the Asia-Pacific Regional Space Agency Forum (APRSAF) in Hanoi, Vietnam.

APRSAF was established in 1993 in response to the declaration adopted by the Asia-Pacific International Space Year Conference (APIC) in 1992, to enhance the development of each country's space program and to exchange views toward future cooperation in space activities in the Asia-Pacific region. The fifteen Session of APRSAF (APRSAF-15) is held in December, 2008 in Hanoi, Vietnam, jointly organized and co-sponsored by the Vietnamese Academy of Science and Technology (VAST), Vietnamese Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

NavSAS presentation, "Internationally embedded GNSS educational activities by ISMB and Politecnico di Torino", was within the "Space Education and Awareness" Working Group. G. Povero talked about the Master on Navigation and Related Applications, about the NAVKIT education tool and finally about the SAT-SURF Suite (SAT-SURF hardware + SAT-SURFER software).

ICG 2008: 9th of December

2008-12-09T16:50:00.009+01:00

Dr. Luigi Bragagnini, Director of Consortium Torino Time - Italy and member of the NaVSAS Group, presented the European Project Harrison at the ICG 2008.

"The Harrison project is aimed at studying the value added by Galileo in Time and Synchronization applications and at defining the requirements for the design and the provision of advanced services in this field. The study analyses the Time user community needs and identifies the applications and services that need a precise time reference for event synchronisation and time event recording. The User communities taken into consideration include Scientific Applications, Astronomy and Quantum Cryptography, Financial and Banking, Railways, Energy and Power, Mobile communications, Data Network Security and Synchronisation. The project investigates also the aspects related to the legal time, the user needs of an authenticated and certified time distributed via GNSS and the possible implementations. Pilot projects that use the Authenticated and Certified Time Solution for field demonstrations are also foreseen by the project. The Timing application Market Analysis is also performed."

NavSAS Group at the ICG 2008 in Pasadena, USA

2008-12-09T09:37:00.006+01:00

The International Committee on Global Navigation Satellite Systems "is established on a voluntary basis as an informal body to promote cooperation, as appropriate, on matters of mutual interest related to civilian satellite-based positioning, navigation, timing and value-added services, as well as the compatibility and interoperability of global navigation satellite systems, while increasing their use to support sustainable development, particularly in developing countries. Participants are system providers, international governmental organizations and international non-governmental organizations." The initiative is sponsored by the United Nations and the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs.

The third ICG is hosted by the United States of America in Pasadena, California. The five day long meeting (8-12 December) is taking place within the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the California Institute of Technology and the offices of the International GNSS Service Central Bureau located at JPL.

The NavSAS Group is participating with a delegation. Our projects will be presented in the next days. More posts will be added, stay tuned!.

SAT-SURFING in Vietnam

2008-12-02T15:29:00.016+01:00

After the successful workshop carried out in Thailand at the AIT (see previous post), the tutoring activities continued on 24 and 25 November in the framework of the PROGENY project, introducing SAT-SURF and SAT-SURFER tools also in Vietnam. A second seminar, hosted at the Hanoi University of Technology (HUT), has been organized thanks to the cooperation between the ISMB and Prof. Nguyen Thi Hoang Lan, Dr. Ngo Hong Son and other hard working people of HUT. The two day seminar has been managed by two members of the NavSAS Group (Fabrizio Dominici e Davide Margaria) and it included a presentation of background, features, and potential applications of these educational tools. Attending such a workshop, the students of HUT had the opportunity to face real measurements on GNSS signals, understanding the most important receiver performance parameters through extended practical exercises and open question sessions.

In spite of the short time allocated to the workshop, it has been a successful initiative, achieving all its initial objectives. In fact, the students had the opportunity to see and to try on their desks all the potentialities of both SAT-SURF and SAT-SURFER, stimulating their interest on GNSS technologies. Very positive feedbacks have been obtained from the students, who would like to spend more time using these tools. In addition, some interesting suggestions and ideas for future developments have been collected.

We hope that SAT-SURF and SAT-SURFER could be a first step in the “ocean” of GNSS signals for many other students in the World!

The NAVKIT education tool on the UNOOSA website

2008-12-01T16:04:00.006+01:00

From today, the NAVKIT education tool is listed in the Education Resources links of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs website.

The NAVKIT tool is the Education Kit foreseen as output of the WP4200 of the “Education Research and Innovation in Galileo – ERIG” Project, funded by the Galileo Supervisory Authority (GSA) through the 6th Research Framework Programme (FP6) – 3rd Call. NAVKIT is a first step into the world of satellite navigation. It has been designed to be a self-consistent tool for engineers or technicians not already trained in navigation topics. Therefore, a technical/scientific approach has been adopted. Topics are presented with a tutorial approach. Inessential technicalities or mathematical proofs are omitted.

Today, NAVKIT contains a single unit: Basics of Global Navigation Satellite Systems.

The NAVKIT is available on the NavSAS website: www.navsas.eu

Master on Navigation: seminars on the EU GNSS programmes for the end of the first quarter

2008-11-25T16:51:00.026+01:00

Last week Politecnico di Torino and ISMB hosted two interesting seminars on the European GNSS programmes for the end of the first quarter of the Master on Navigation and Related Applications.

Frédéric Bastide, from the European GNSS Supervisory Authority (GSA), presented the whole Galileo programme. In the first session, he provided an overview on the rationale and EU motivation. He talked about the history of the European GNSS and the current situation. In particular, he underlined the importance of the international cooperation within the Galileo programme. In the second session, he illustrated the Galileo User Segment providing a full overview on the future applications and services (including the signals).

The second seminar was centered on the EGNOS augmentation system. The ESA officer Felix Toran talked about the EGNOS programme. He explained the system history, its functioning and its future development. Finally, he illustrated its performances in the areas covered by the service.

The aim of the Master is to provide students the most up-to-date information on the GNSS technology. Experts from EU and ESA are a key element of this strategy for their knowledge and high-end profile.

Diapositiva 1

PROGENY Pilot Project in Thailand

2008-11-22T23:19:00.012+01:00

On November 21-22, Fabrizio Dominici and Davide Margaria presented the SAT-SURF & SAT-SURFER solution at the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) of Bangkok. The two days workshop was carried out under the Progeny project (funded by the European GNSS Supervisory Authorithy) and organized by ISMB and AIT with the support of Prof. Nitin K. Tripathi and Prof. Kiyoshi Honda. The seminar has been attended by 45 students from AIT.

DAY 1: The day started with an introduction of the NavSAS Group research activities. In particular it has been showed the background for the SAT-SURF & SURFER realization, providing also an overview of the NAVKIT. Moreover in the morning the presentation included details about architecture, functionalities and application fields for both the hardware and software platforms (SAT-SURF & SAT-SURFER). The morning session has been concluded with the setup and configuration of the demonstration platform with a quick view of the main features previously described. In the afternoon it has been faced the first data collections and the solution of some exercises provided with SAT-SURFER.

DAY 2: The exercise session has been concluded in the second day proposing additional exercises and providing the solutions. The students have been also assisted for the setup and configuration of the educational platform on their PC. The seminar ended with a fill out of the tutorial evaluation questionnaires and an open question session for deepening on SAT-SURF & SAT- SURFER.

We hope that the positive feedbacks and the useful suggestions received by the students can feed the discussion on this blog and help to learn how to practically SURF with GNSS!!!

Is Galileo a military project?

2008-11-21T11:04:00.002+01:00

Is Galileo a military project? Today the Daily Mail published a news about the European military space policy. The journalist says:

"The European Union is pursuing a secretive military space policy which could lead to a costly 'Star Wars' arms drive, a report warned yesterday. ... Next week, ministers from all ESA member states will meet in The Hague to implement a new European space policy which identifies military 'security' as a priority. A driving force behind the switch in policy is President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, which holds the European presidency until December 31. In July, he said the space agenda was one of his priorities. The think-tank report also said French ambitions for the militarisation of space have caused rows with Britain - particularly over Galileo, the much-delayed European global positioning system. Galileo would be vital in any European deployment of the sort of GPS-guided artillery now being used by the U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan. Report author Frank Slijper, an economist and arms trade specialist, wrote: 'While Galileo is generally presented as a genuinely civilian programme, it now appears highly militarised. 'The public denial of these important capabilities shows how much Brussels and many European capitals are afraid to tell the public that Galileo is to become an extremely important tool in future warfare by European military forces.'"

True or not, the news is interesting...

ERIG project presented to the GSA

2008-11-13T11:53:00.011+01:00

On 16 October, the ERIG project was presented by the partners to the European GNSS Supervisory Authority (GSA). In particular, it was highlighted the importance of the online GNSS education tool developed by the NavSAS, the NAVKIT.

From the GSA news: " "NavKit is similar to programmes already being offered online by a number of universities," said Gabriella Povero of Italy's Istituto Superiore Mario Boella, "but this is the first time we have applied the concept in the GNSS sector."
The NavKit programme is just one of the results of the ERIG project (Education, research and innovation in GNSS). With a strong focus on content, it features top lecturers delivering presentations to a technician- and engineer-level audience on a wide variety of GNSS-related subjects. "Feedback so far has been positive," said Povero, "especially with respect to content and exercises."
ERIG partners say they hope NavKit will not only prove a valuable resource for building European GNSS expertise, but will also draw new attention to the European initiatives such as Galileo and EGNOS and GNSS policy in general."
The NAVKIT is available online on the NavSAS website.

New EGNOS RIMS in Egypt

2008-11-12T09:59:00.008+01:00

The Egyptian government and the European Space Agency (ESA) signed an agreement about the construction of a new Ranging and Integrity Monitoring Station (RIMS) in Alexandria. Thanks to the new infrastructure the EGNOS services will be more accurate in the region. In particular, the facility will make available a variety of new EGNOS-based services in the Mediterranean area and beyond. News from GSA website.

PNT challanges and Opportunities Symposium @ Stanford University

2008-11-05T19:58:00.005+01:00

Fabio Dovis has been invited to attend a workshop at the Stanford University, PNT challanges and Opportunities Symposium, organized by the Stanford Center for Position, Navigation and Time. The workshop attendance is limited to 150 people and the symposium gathers high level speakers both involved in the GPS system development and in the GPS market.

It's being an awesome chance to get pieces of information on GPS future from the US standpoint, and an opportunity for good networking.

L2C navigation message coming soon

2008-11-05T14:25:00.004+01:00

The GPS Wing announced the availability of the GPS new navigation message on L2C in autumn 2009. "In the fall of 2009, the U.S. Air Force will achieve another milestone on the path toward GPS modernization. Operators at the 50th Space Wing and the 2nd Space Operations Squadron will upload new software to the IIR-M satellites enabling the first broadcast of a transitional Civil Navigation (CNAV) message on the already transmitted second civil signal (L2C). Once the go-ahead is given, the new message will broadcast on the L2C signal emanating from the IIR-M satellites. With the upcoming launches of the remaining two IIR-Ms, there will be a total of eight modernized GPS satellites broadcasting L2C with the new CNAV message. Additionally, the IIF satellites will be launched with the built-in capability to broadcast the new message. ... he L2C signal will provide a lower tracking threshold and better cross-correlation protection than L1 C/A. The data portion of the L2C signal is also different; instead of the current "legacy" navigation (LNAV) structure with subframes of data repeating in a fixed pattern as on L1 C/A, the CNAV structure which will be used on L2C has individual messages which can be broadcast in a flexible order with variable repeat cycles."

N-GENE presentation @ the Asilomar conference

2008-10-29T21:29:00.004+01:00

Today, dr. Fabio Dovis of the NavSAS group presented at the IEEE Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems and Computers 2008 a paper on the novel algorithms implemented in the N-GENE fully software receiver.

The paper is entitled Efficient Signal Acquisition for a Real Time GPS/Galileo Software receiver and is co-authored by Maurizio Fantino, Marco Pini and Fabio Dovis.

It describes some architectural choices for acquisiton, in order match the real time constraints, keeping the performance level high, and for the tracking in order to make it robust to lock loss at low C/N0.l

The presentation was hosted in a special session, where also other papers reated to GNSS signal processing have been presented by University of New South Wales, Stanford University and University of Westminster.

Sat-Surf & Sat-Surfer Suite brought to life!

2008-10-24T17:34:00.007+02:00

Education on GNSS topics is sometimes difficult and often lacks of practical experience. In order to train students and professionals to face real issues and manage satellite navigation data, the NavSAS group developed Sat-Surf and Sat-Surfer: the Training Board & the Software Suite for GNSS Training!
This solution includes hardware and software facilities as well as practical exercises. It is dedicated to the GNSS students but it can be also useful for all the professionals in the field of navigation.

For a complete GNSS training the theory is provided by the NAVKIT distance learning tool, and the practical skills are trained by means of the Sat-Surf & Sat-Surfer suite. The Sat-Surf is a compact, lightweight and versatile device able to accommodate different GPS receiver. It can embed different kinds of GPS receivers, such as: the new uBlox5 Galileo Ready, the uBlox – Antaris4, the Falcom JP13 LP based on SiRF Star III technology and the Falcom JP15 based on SiRF Star II. In the next months the platform will be adapted to accommodate also other chipsets.

Sat-Surf includes communication capabilities using a GSM/GPRS quad-band unit that enables the development of innovative A-GPS strategies as well as the study of DGPS techniques.

The Sat-Surfer software thanks to its flexibility allows the interface to the Sat-Surf and includes the possibility of data collection and storage.Hardware and software are complemented by a set of proposed exercises, included in the package, that ranges from a simple level of usage, to an advanced for development of original navigation algorithms for data processing.

More information are available on the official web site: http://www.navsas.ismb.it/sat-surf or contacting us at: sat-surfer@ismb.it

IRGAL Workshop

2008-10-21T13:18:00.005+02:00

Today in Torino a major event is concluding the activities of the IRGAL project. The IRGAL project has been co-funded by the European Union, the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance and the Piedmont Region within the DOCUP 2000-2006 Mis. 3.4 programme and aimed at increasing the competitive edge of the Piedmont ICT district in the crucial areas of Time and Receivers that can be regarded as the core of satellite navigation. Specifically, research was focused on the areas of atomic clocks, optical links for time transfer, GNSS SW receiver and HW RF components with the objective of developing innovative technologies and finalizing them up to pre-competitive prototypes.

In the demo session the software receiver developed by the NavSAS group is presented, working in real time on the L1 band.

160 attendees made the workshop very successfull, demonstrating the capability of the sinergies between research and industry in the Turin area on the GNSS topics.

NGS CORS Network Map is growing

2008-10-15T11:18:00.004+02:00

Inside GNSS reports an interesting news about the growth of the NOAA’s National Geodetic Survey (NGS) Network Map.

From the news: "The network helps ensure the consistency and accuracy of the nation’s spatial reference system. Each CORS site provides GNSS — GPS and GLONASS — carrier phase and code range measurements, recorded on a 30-second or shorter interval. Data are free and accessible via the Internet. NGS invites organizations and individuals to share data from their permanent GPS base stations by including these stations in the National CORS network, following a rigorous a set of criteria established by the agency. The NOAA CORS network now contains more than 1,200 sites spanning the United States, its territories, and several foreign countries. Surveyors, GIS users, and others can combine their own GPS data with GPS data from the CORS network to determine three-dimensional positional coordinates that approach a few centimeters in accuracy.
... According to NOAA officials, the addition of the new sites significantly improves both the geographic coverage of the CORS network as well as the accuracy with which CORS users can position things, including property boundaries, transportation arteries, buildings and other map-worthy objects. The expanded coverage will also benefit those organizations that apply CORS data to monitor “space weather,” including the distribution of water vapor in the atmosphere and the distribution of free electrons in the ionosphere."

As shown in the screenshot above, the best part of the reference stations are located in the USA and in its allied countries.

New GPS SPS Performance Standard

2008-10-13T09:44:00.003+02:00

Finally, the U.S. Government published the new GPS SPS (Standard Positioning Service) performance standard. The new document is freely available on the PNT website. It introduces improvements to the previous version, publisehd in 2001. The most important changes are the better signal-in-space (SIS) range accuracy and the new definition for the GPS constellation with more than 24 satellites.

GAL-PMI project: the final workshop

2008-10-02T14:30:00.025+02:00

Piedmont Region is extremely interested in satellite navigation technology. Thanks to a 6 million € regional funding scheme, the GAL-PMI project started to boost R&D, innovation and the technology transfer in the field of satellite navigation in Piedmont. The applications are focused both on the future Galileo system and on the existing systems such as GPS and EGNOS. On Wednesday, 1st October the GAL-PMI consortium presented its results in Turin.The project was high-demanding: 100,000 hours of research and experimentation, 3 patents, 3 technology transfer contracts, 25 companies involved (SMEs in particular), 5 experimentations in real scenarios.

The outputs of the project are preindustrial prototypes using the PNT (positioning, navigation and timing) data to provide their services. The main fields involved in the project are the road monitoring, the tourism, the emergencies management and the payment systems. All the projects are presented on the official GAL-PMI website.

At the final workshop, there were many important personalities from the industry, the university and the politics, including the Italian Ministry of Transportation Mr Altiero Matteoli.

"Big three agree to agree"

2008-09-29T12:19:00.004+02:00

At the last Institute of Navigation (ION) conference in Savannah (Georgia, USA), the "Big Three" of satellite navigation technology pledged more international co-operation, said the news on the GSA website. Who are the "Big Three"? USA with GPS, Russia with GLONASS and EU with Galileo. China could be the fourth with its Compass.. maybe..

"The common theme for all of the speakers was achieving compatibility and interoperability among future GNSS. "When it comes to navigation, GPS is likely to go down in history as the most important invention since the compass," said Grimes. "Of course, GPS does not satisfy every positioning, navigation, and timing [PNT] need. Using GPS in concert with other GNSS and PNT services and technologies requires a stable foundation of policies and performance standards built on a sound architecture. All these new satellite navigation systems will need to make sure they can interoperate."".

New Glonass launch

2008-09-26T10:43:00.004+02:00

The Russian Space Agency announced the launch of 3 new Glonass-M satellites from Baikonur, on Thursday 25 September. The launch was made with a Proton-M space vehicle. All three satellites operate nominally under the ground control, Roscosmos said. The Glonass refurbishment is going on very quickly. Satellite navigation is a priority for the Russian Government that recently assigned new funds to the Glonass system. (Picture from the Roscosmos website)

GPS: end date for Codeless/Semi-Codeless Access

2008-09-25T10:01:00.003+02:00

The US Department of Defense published the end date for Codeless/Semi-Codeless Access: "To enable an orderly and systematic transition, the U.S. Government has established December 31, 2020 as the date by which users of semi-codeless/codeless receiving equipment are expected to transition to using GPS civil-coded signals. Based on the current launch schedule and projected budget, the December 31, 2020 transition date represents the planned availability of the second and third coded civil GPS signals being broadcast from a minimum of 24 GPS satellites. Department of Defense will reassess the transition date should significant GPS program delays arise."

EU and the Critical Space Technologies

2008-09-22T11:15:00.005+02:00

EU needs an independence on Critical Space Technologies. From the ESA website: "The European Commission (EC), the European Space Agency (ESA) and the European Defence Agency (EDA) have agreed to join forces in order to develop critical space technologies in Europe. The aim is to ensure that Europe can rely on a technical and industrial capacity for accessing space, in particular in the area of the manufacturing of satellites and launchers. ... While Europe wants to continue its cooperation with other important space nations in the world, the development of space technologies for ensuring non-dependence is of strategic importance for Europe and for its role as a major space power and credible international partner." May this new attitude influence the evolution of Galileo?

ION GNSS conference closed

2008-09-19T23:15:00.007+02:00

The ION GNSS conference finished today, and as every year it has been an amazing experience of scientific growth, discussion and networking with the best people in the world dealing with Satellite Navigation.

The NavSAS team had the chance to present 8 papers (eventually all the alternates became oral presentations):

Signal Compression for an Efficient and Simplified GNSS Signal Parallel Acquisition: M. Nicola, A. Nordio, Politecnico di Torino, Italy; M. Fantino, M. Pini, P. Mulassano, Istituto Superiore Mario Boella, Italy
Reduced Complexity Circuits for Serial Code Phase Search Acquisition: G. Girau, L. Lo Presti, Politecnico di Torino, Italy; M. Fantino, Istituto Superiore Mario Boella, Italy
User Terminal/Local Element System for Network Based Positioning using RTK/EGNOS in Urban Environment: G. Marucco, C. Porporato, M. De Agostino, A.M. Manzino, Politecnico di Torino, Italy; F. Dominici, A. Defina, K. Charqane, Istituto Superiore Mario Boella, Italy
Cooperative LBS for Secure Transport System: A. Tomatis, Politecnico di Torino, Italy; G. Pau, University of California, Los Angeles; P. Mulassano, Istituto Superiore Mario Boella, Italy; F. Dovis, Politecnico di Torino, Italy
An Interference Impact Assessment Model for GNSS Signals: B. Motella, Istituto Superiore Mario Boella, Italy; S. Savasta, F. Dovis, D. Margaria, Politecnico di Torino, Italy
The IRGAL Project: Innovation and Research on Galileo in Piedmont: M. Pini, M. Fantino, P. Mulassano, Istituto Superiore Mario Boella, Italy; L. Lo Presti, Politechico di Torino, Italy; L. Bragagnini, Consorzio Torino Time, Italy
Differential Data/Pilot Joint Acquisition Strategies for Indoor Galileo E1 Signal: T.H. Ta, L. Lo Presti, F. Dovis, D. Margaria, R. Lesca, Politecnico di Torino, Italy
GNSS Signal Analysis and Monitoring Tools Developed within the SWAN Project: E. Falletti, B. Motella, Istituto Superiore Mario Boella, Italy; D. Margaria, CNIT-Politecnico di Torino, Italy; L. Giugno, Wiser, Italy; M. Luise, CNIT-Universita degli Studi di Pisa, Italy; R. Marracci, Intecs, Italy; F. Longo, Agenzia Spaziale Italiana

and another paper was presented by our colleagues of the geomatics department of Politecnico

The New L2C GPS Code: Signal and Positioning Quality Analysis: M. De Agostino, M. Piras, C. Porporato, Politecnico di Torino, Italy

Next year the conference will be again in Savannah, and we will be ready to the funny experience of getting the boat to reach the convention center on the other side of the river facing the city !

ION GNSS conference started

2008-09-17T06:46:00.003+02:00

Today the ION GNSS conference started in Savannah, GA. more than 1000 attendees are expected, and 6 people of the NavSAS group are there to give presentations, discuss cooperations, and collect pieces of information on the latest developments in the Satellite Navigation fields.
Again, an outstanding experience for all the researchers of Politecnico and ISMB.

Russia boosts GLONASS

2008-09-16T14:56:00.003+02:00

Russia announced a new funding for its navigation satellite system, GLONASS. The additional funds available are 67 bln rubles, more or less 1.8 bln €.. Today GLONASS is still under a heavy refurbishment. It's important to underline that GLONASS is a military system with civilian applications, like GPS and unlike Galileo.
Russia is boosting even its space investments. Other 45 bln rubles will be spent for the federal space programs over the next 3 years.

Giove-B is working well

2008-09-15T12:00:00.004+02:00

Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. (SSTL) completed the Giove-B in-orbit testing. The second experimental satellite of the Galileo constellation is operational and it's working well. In particular, the maser clock seems operative: "Additional test results also indicate that the hydrogen maser atomic clock onboard GIOVE-B is working correctly, according to SSTL.". GPS World reports that SSTL tested again Giove-A. The first experimental satellite is still in good conditions..

EGNOS Test

2008-09-01T14:25:00.002+02:00

EGNOS is under development and the whole system should be available in 2009. The EU-funded GIANT project (GNSS introduction in the aviation sector)is testing on the field the EGNOS performances in civilian aviation. The last test was held in Valencia, Spain, and it was a success. The news is available on the GSA website. EGNOS works!

Russia started production of Glonass-K satellites

2008-08-29T09:54:00.005+02:00

Russia started production of new Glonass satellites, news by Russia Info-centre. The new satellites will have improved performances and lifespan. The Glonass-K satellites are the third generation of the russian navigation satellites and they should be operational since 2010. Russia is increasing its efforts to fill the gap with the american GPS. Nowadays, the performance gap is still important.

Navigation and Timing on the Moon

2008-08-26T09:44:00.009+02:00

NASA Seeks Input For Commercial Lunar Communications & Navigation

NASA lunar programme is speeding up. The US space agency issued a Request for Information (RFI) to "solicit ideas from private companies in providing communications and navigation services that would support the development of exploration, scientific and commercial capabilities on the moon over the next 25 years. NASA plans to establish science stations on the lunar surface beginning as early as 2013, followed by the return of humans to the moon and establishment of the first lunar outpost in 2020. Communications, networking and navigation capabilities required to support these efforts will be provided by NASA, other national space agencies, private industry or some combination thereof."

The NASA interest in Navigation, Positioning and Timing is a good example of how crucial these technologies are becoming. Navigation and Timing are part of the "infrastructure" of many hi-tech applications. Nowadays navigation services are ubiquitous on Earth, tomorrow even on the Moon..

Thales Alenia & Astrium: Galileo procurement is too slow..

2008-08-05T10:15:00.003+02:00

Thales Alenia Space and Astrium Satellites say the Galileo procurement is too slow. The process could delay the Galileo programme putting into service. Space.com reports: "The procurement has been substantially delayed and this schedule introduces more delays," said Evert Dudok, chief executive of Astrium Satellites. "We need procurement decisions in 2008 to keep to the service introduction date." Dudok made his remarks here July 21 during a tour of Europe's Guiana Space Center spaceport as part of a delegation that included French Research Minister Valerie Pecresse and European Commission Vice President Guenter Verheugen.".

MBOC's works!

2008-08-04T10:30:00.004+02:00

Inside GNSS reports an interesting article on the initial analysis of the Giove-B MBOC signal: "Initial results from observations of the Galileo Giove-B satellite conducted by researchers at the European Space Agency (ESA) and Septentrio Satellite Navigation indicate that the multiplex binary offset carrier (MBOC) modulation outperforms the BOC(1,1) modulation on the L1 (data + pilot channels) frequency in mitigating the effects of multipath or reflected signals." The picture is taken from the Inside GNSS news.

GPS III image!

2008-07-30T11:30:00.006+02:00

The GPS III is still under development and it should be available in 2013-2014. Quite a long time.. However, the National Executive Committee for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) published the image of the new GPS III satellite for the public. Really a nice satellite! A great image library is available on the PNT website. Thanks for the pictures!

Iridium satellites for GPS = iGPS

2008-07-29T10:38:00.006+02:00

Inside GNSS reports an interesting news about Iridium and GPS. Iridium is the commercial satellite constellation developed by Motorola and launched in 1998. It has 66 LEO satellites. Iridium can help GPS performances, like Inside GNSS says: " Awarded by the U.S. Navy’s Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), the funding will be used for research, development, and demonstration of the High Integrity GPS Technology Concept — known more commonly as iGPS. The program is developing techniques that enable faster acquisition (time to first fix or TTFF) of GPS satellite signals in adverse operating environments, including those with RF interference or urban settings. The i-GPS architecture involves high-precision time transfer of GPS time and its rebroadcast over the higher powered Iridium communications channels".

!!! Last days !!! IEEE CCNC 2009 - Call for papers

2008-07-28T12:22:00.005+02:00

!!! IEEE CCNC 2009 - Special session - Beyond GPS !!!
!!! CALL FOR PAPERS !!!

These are the last days to submit a paper for the Consumer Communications & Networking Conference Special session: Beyond GPS - where navigation meets consumer communications. 11 - 13 January 2009 - Las Vegas, Nevada! The deadline is the 31th July! For all the information, go to the following link.

NavSAS on Facebook

2008-07-25T10:11:00.008+02:00

From today the NavSAS is on Facebook. Become a fan!

Facebook is our new attempt to disseminate "culture" on satellite navigation and on our work. You can find all the information about NavSAS on our website and you can watch our videos on our YouTube page.

New Regulation on Galileo/EGNOS

2008-07-24T12:53:00.003+02:00

The European Parliament and the Council published on the Official Journal of the European Union the "REGULATION (EC) No 683/2008 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 9 July 2008 on the further implementation of the European satellite navigation programmes (EGNOS and Galileo)".
The Regulation contains the rules for the development of the European satellite navigation programmes. In particular, there are defined the rules on the governance and on the financial contribution of the EU. This Regulation puts order after the end of the Public Private Partnership.

NavSAS at the GNSS Summer School

2008-07-22T08:46:00.006+02:00

Here is the report of the first day at the Second International Summer School on Global Satellite Navigation Systems by Gianluca Falco, a NavSAS Ph.D.

After a long trip, finally I reached Berchtsgaden, a quite small village close to the Bavarian Alps that is the established site for the GNSS summer school. Few minutes after my arrival, I had the chance to meet some participants to this school. They come from a lot of countries spread all over the world: Germany (of course), Belgium, Austria, Denmark, Poland, Romania, Russia, also outside Europe such as Brazil, Australia, USA, and even from Rwanda! I spoke with lots of them: four of them work for Septentrio company in Belgium, other guys work for DLR (German Aerospace Agency) testing GNSS system. Then I talked with Russian guys that work for the Russian Space Agency in Moscow (of course the navigation system they use is GLONASS).

At 6 PM professor Guenther Hein started the opening ceremony.
He provided us an overview of what we'll do in the next ten days of the school, speaking about the content of the lectures we'll follow. A very interesting topic of his speech is that we'll have the chance to receive and test a real Galileo signal computing the user's position thanks to three pseudo-like satellites set up on the top of the mountains nearby Berchtsgaden.

Then he introduced three other famous professors: Prof. Per Enge of Standford University, Prof. Michel Bousquet of ISAE (French Aerospace Engineering Institute) and Prof. R. Grohe of the Technical University in Aachen.

Then we moved to the Congress Hall to follow a lecture given by Thomas Reiter, a former astronaut for ESA who experienced twice how life in space is. In fact he was on board engineer for the Euromir mission in March 1995 when he spent 179 days on board of the space station. Then a couple of years ago he took part to the Astrolab mission, the first European long-term mission on board the international space station. During this lecture he showed us some videos about life on board a space station and what are the tasks that each astronauts has to fulfill every day to maintain a right working of the space station. Then he explained us that a lot of experiment were made inside the space station: biologic ones (about the study of the growth of some vegetables and to make them more robust against disease), tests about plasma particles (used for example to manufacture more advanced semiconductors) and, last but not least, lot of tests on human beings focused, in particular, on heart check up.

GAGAN is coming

2008-07-18T09:53:00.003+02:00

The Satellite Based Augmentation Systems are becoming more and more common. The US WAAS was certified in 2003, the Japanese MTSAT in 2007. Europe should certify EGNOS in 2009, maybe.. "Maybe" because in the last years the delays were ordinary.. While Europe is still working on EGNOS, the Indian system GAGAN is moving forward. On July 15, Raytheon announced that "is leading a team to deliver a comprehensive solution for the Indian Space Research Organization and Airports Authority of India global navigation satellite systems." Come on EGNOS!

NavSAS Mid Term meeting.

2008-07-16T18:59:00.003+02:00

Yesterday the NavSAS group had the Mid Term plenary meeting. It has been a chance to verify the personal and team objectives foreseen for the 2008.

The meeting aimed also at sharing among people of the NavSAS who work on different sub-topics the milestone achieved by everyone, sharing some of the good results, and also the weaknesses still to be improved.
Any weakness is in fact also an opportunity.

There are still 6 months for everyone to achieve the year's objectives. Now back to work !!!!

The Russian answer..

2008-07-16T17:22:00.004+02:00

At the air show in Farnborough, in UK, the Russian ISS (Information Satellite Systems company) General Designer and General Director Nikolai Testoyedov said that the GLONASS is under "a complex program to enhance the accuracy and reliability". It should reach a precision comparable with the current GPS in 2011-2012. It is not a news at all..
Maybe, is that an answer to the recent EU Parliament vote?
The news is from Interfax, reported by redOrbit.

Towards a military Galileo?

2008-07-14T10:02:00.005+02:00

On the 10th of July the European Parliament adopted a report by Karl Von Wogau, Security and Defence Subcommittee Chair. The report underlines "the necessity of Galileo for autonomous European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) operations, for the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), for Europe’s own security and for the Union's strategic autonomy". The point is that European Union is concerned about a military Galileo and about the weaponisation of space. But something is changing: the discussion on a military Galileo is not a taboo any more. Wogau proposed to use Galileo for a ballistic missiles launch early-warning system. The involvement of the European Parliament in space relate issues and in the Galileo programme is constantly growing. The debate is open...

NavSAS at the International Training Course in India

2008-07-09T18:09:00.005+02:00

Prof. Letizia Lo Presti and dr. Beatrice Motella are currently in Ahmedabad India teaching some lesson at the International Training Course on satellite navigation and location based services.

The course is held at the United Nations- affiliated Regional Centre for Space Science and Technology Education in Asia and the Pacific (CSSTEAP), in Ahmedabad, India.

This Training Course is co-sponsored by the Government of the United States of America through the ICG and organized by the UN-affiliated Regional Centre for Space Science and Technology Education in Asia and the Pacific (CSSTEAP) and will make a major contribution to capacity building in the use of GNSS in various areas of applications.

The UN-OOSA states that this is the first activity in a series of training courses to be organized in the field of GNSS applications in UN-affiliated Regional Centres, and will start the development of a model education curriculum in GNSS supplementing the already existing four education curricula in space science and technology. This is also the first activity to pursue the prospective acting of Regional Centres of Excellence as ICG Information Centres.

Giove A/B double difference

2008-07-09T12:46:00.005+02:00

Inside GNSS reports an interesting news from the TU DELFT University of Technology: "Researchers at Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), the Netherlands, succeeded this week in simultaneously tracking the GIOVE-A and GIOVE-B L1 Open Service signals in space, producing the first reported computation of a double-difference carrier phase integer ambiguity on the first two experimental Galileo satellites in orbit."
The picture is taken from InsideGNSS website.

Galileo procurement tender opened on 1st July!

2008-07-03T11:32:00.005+02:00

European Space Agency and the European GNSS Supervisory Authority published the Galileo procurement tender on 1st July! As it was said in the last communications, the 2007-2013 budget available is about €3.4 bn. The procurement is both for the space and the ground segments. ESA says that Galileo should be operational in 2013: "The overall programme objective for Galileo is the deployment, by 2013, of a European navigation system providing five main services, namely the Open Service, the Safety of Life Service, the Commercial Service, the Public Regulated Service, and the Search and Rescue Service." The procurement is available at this link. On the GSA website it is underlined that: "The procurement tender includes infrastructure and management items and will be carried out by ESA in its role as delegated procurement agent, working closely with the European Commission, as contracting authority.".
2008 is becoming a great year for the European satellite navigation: GioveB operational, the Galileo procurement.. Finally something moves!

May be Galileo partially US made?

2008-06-30T17:43:00.008+02:00

Some days ago Inside GNSS reported a very interesting news. The title is "Air Force Tanker Controversy May Influence Galileo Competition". The news said that Boeing, maybe, could be interested in building some Galileo satellite, in particular "an interest that has probably grown in the wake of the company’s recent loss in the competition for the GPS IIIA contract.". Inside GNSS quoted the new EU regulation on Galileo components that "allows European companies to rely on non-European sources for certain components and services in case of “demonstrated substantial advantages in terms of quality and costs, taking account of the strategic nature of the European GNSS programs and of the EU security and export control requirements.”". Inside GNSS quoted an article from the German business newspaper Handelsblatt.
The Galileo procurement should be published soon.. What will happen? Boeing will make an offer to build the "european" satellites? What will be the EADS role?

Master on Navigation and Related Applications

2008-06-18T14:11:00.018+02:00

The applications for the fifth edition of the Master on Navigation and Related Applications are open! EU citizens and extra-EU citizens resident in Italy can apply until 25th August. Some grants (1 year living expenses + enrollment fee) are still available.

The II level specializing Master is a joint initiative of Politecnico di Torino and Istituto Superiore Mario Boella (ISMB) with the collaboration of Istituto Elettrotecnico Nazionale Galileo Ferraris (IEN) and the United Nations Office for Oute r Space Affairs (UN-OOSA). The collaboration with the UN-OOSA is important because the long term fellowship programme will provide scientists and specialists from developing countries with an opportunity to receive a Master degree in Navigation and related applications.
The Master lasts one year and is provided in English. The syllabus of the Master is focused on GPS/Galileo systems as well as on applications of positioning and navigation.
Here the "How to Apply" link.

Live from Bruxelles: Public hearing on Galileo/EGNOS at the European Parliament

2008-06-13T09:13:00.009+02:00

Yesterday the European Parliament hosted a public hearing: "Galileo/EGNOS Applications and Services - The way forward". The hearing included representatives from European Institutions and industry debating the issues and implications needed to foster the optimal economic and social use of both Galileo and EGNOS. Some interesting speeches:

Mrs Etelka Barsi-Pataky (European Parliament Member - ITRE Committee) talked about the legislative framework of Galileo saying that EU legislative processes are difficult to apply to projects like this. Galileo is the first european-led infrastructure. She underlined the importance of the Galileo Insteristitutional Panel (GIP), established after the failure of the Public-Private Partnership (PPP). She also excluded further funding beyond the €3.4 bl already available..
Mr Raymond Rosso, for the French Galileo interministerial coordination stressed his speech on EGNOS and its applications. He say the EGNOS validation precess will finish in march 2009 ( "it will" not "it should). Even Mr Rosso underlined the new role of the Commission and the importance of the GIP.
Mr Edgar Thielman, European Commission - DG TREN, exposed some impressive economic forecast. The GNSS market should be about €20 bn in 2008, €70 bn in 2001 and a huge €300-450 bn in 2025!! Galileo is not alone and the Russian and Chinese competitor are just around the corner.. So , Mr Thielmann underlined the need to speed up the whole project.
Mr Pedro Pedreira, Executive Director of GSA, talked about the new GNSS market, still at the beginning. He hope in a deeper collaboration between the agencies involved in the european GNSS. Pedreira confirmed EGNOS upcoming operational phase: in the first half of 2009 the system will be operational and the Open Signal will be available, in 2010 the Safety of Life service for civilian aviation will be ready.

The other speeches were mostly on already known applications..
What did we learn form this public hearing?
1) The European Parliament and the Commission are very interested in GNSS. The GIP growing importance is an evident signal.
2) GSA future is still uncertain.
3) EU is really interested in GNSS mass market applications and products, less in research.
4) EGNOS should be available soon (we really hope so!) and it should become the market driver for the new GNSS services provided by the future Galileo.

GPS L5 signal in delay?

2008-06-09T10:29:00.004+02:00

Inside GNSS reported an interesting news about the new GPS IIR-M satellites. The launcher, a Delta II, could fail during the separation of the third stage of the rocket. So the launches were delayed. The news sayd that: "Air Force Capt. Brian Adcock, chief of the Navstar Operations Support Office (NOSO) at Schriever AFB, says the L5 signal needs to be transmitting from satellites in orbit by August 26, 2009, in order to meet an International Telecommunications Union (ITU) deadline for the L5 frequency allocation.". The L5 signal will be important for some civilian application, such as air transportation security.

A Special Session on GNSS at IEEE CCNC

2008-06-04T13:12:00.006+02:00

The Consumer Communications and Networking Conference is an annual event organized by the IEEE Communication Society in Las Vegas, in the same week of the Consumer Electronics Showcase.

http://www.ieee-ccnc.org/

As happened for the 2008 conference (held in January), I've been asked to organize a special session "Beyond GPS: Where Navigation Meets Consumer Communications" for the 2009 conference, addressing the sinergies between navigation/positioning and mass market terminals . This year the special session has been one of the most succesfull as a number of attendees, and I believe also for the quality of the papers presented.

Not to say that the conference is in Vegas, that it's always fun (at least for few days !).

Here is the pic of the people of the NavSAS group attending the 2008 IEEE CCNC, Fabrizio Dominici, Simone Savasta and myself together with prof. Dennis Akos of the University of Colorado @ Boulder, who was my co-session chair.

The call for papers of the special session can be found here.

Deadline for papers abstracts is June 29, looking forward to receiving a lot of submission !!

Public comments for the new GPS civilan signals.

2008-05-22T10:33:00.002+02:00

On the U.S. Office of Space Commercialization website there's a "Request for Public Comments on Codeless and Semi-Codeless Access to GPS". The request of public comment is about the U.S. Government's plan to phase out codeless and semi-codeless access to GPS by December 31, 2020. The end of the Y-code is due to the introduction of the two new civilian signals L2C and L5. It's quite evident that the "civilian side" will be extremely important for the next GPS generation. Maybe thanks to the imminent Galileo..

What are the European Technology Platforms (ETPs) and how Galileo can benefit from them?

2008-05-22T10:29:00.000+02:00

European Commission launched the European Technology Platforms (http://cordis.europa.eu/technology-platforms/home_en.html) that have the main objective to provide a framework for stakeholders, led by industry, to define research and development priorities, timeframes and action plans on a number of strategically important issues where achieving Europe's future growth and competitiveness. ETPs have the potential to contribute significantly to the renewed Lisbon Strategy (see http://ec.europa.eu/growthandjobs/index_en.htm ) and to the development of a European Research Areas of knowledge for growth including satellite navigation.

Among the other it has been in fact created an ETP called ESTP (European Space Technology Platform), see http://www.estp-space.eu/. It is managed by European Space Agency and it is declared that it aims to create a non-dependent technology portfolio facilitating European strategic independence for the access to and exploration in space, and to support the development of next-generation technologies best serving Europe’s ambitions in space-related sectors like Galileo and GMES.

Reading the available documents on the web site, it is not clear which benefits the ESTP generated on Galileo. Among the list of stakeholders, is there someone having an experience of cooperation in this ETP?

Expanding the Navigation Lab

2008-05-15T22:50:00.006+02:00

Today we started moving some of the NavSAS people to a new room that has been added to the Navigation Lab.
Finally we will have a less crowded environment for working and a better organization of all the test equipment, that in the last months grew a lot.
The old room of the lab will be hopefully less messy of cables, connectors, boards and receivers, at least for some weeks !

The new room is very nice and it is painted with the NavSAS colours. However, once all the people who are now hosted in other labs will have moved there, it will be fully occupied already... We need start working for finding a third room in the next months...... :-)

NICE test!

2008-05-06T10:58:00.008+02:00

On 24th April the NavSAS Group tested the Navigation In Case of Emergency (NICE) technology in collaboration with the Piedmont speleological alpine rescue team. The test site was in the small city of Cantalupa, near Torino. The control center was hosted in the emergency truck provided by the Civil Protection and equipped with built in VHF antennas, satellite internet connection and energy generators. NICE is a new technological application that uses GPS/EGNOS signals to provide precise positioning in difficult environments. There are a lot of devices with similar characteristics, but NICE is bidirectional and permits both to the user and to the control center to know where the user is almost in real time.

The NICE box receives the GPS raw data and sends them to the control center where they are corrected, thanks to EGNOS signal, and retransmitted to the user on the ground. NICE transmits in different ways: GPRS, VHF and soon in TETRA and DMR. The control center can visualize on a cartographic tool the users on the ground guiding them and telling them where they are already been: this is extremely important during a rescue or a research! In the test there were involved 3 rescue teams simulating a search for a missing person. During the test we demonstrate that with the NICE technology is possible to monitor the rescue teams with a few meter precision even in a very difficult environment like a valley with a high forest. Also the rescue teams can monitor where they are and where they have been tanks to a PDA. Many times the radius of uncertainty was less than two meters! At the control center the public was able to see on an lcd monitor the position of the rescue teams on a cartographic tool. The experiment was very useful even to test the reliability of our system. Sometimes we had some problems with the VHF or GPRS connection. In the end the test was quite a success. The system works and we discovered some problems never saw before in the laboratory tests. Don't worry.. We already fixed them!

GIOVE-B succesfully launched

2008-04-27T11:29:00.004+02:00

Giove-B launch was succesfull. The full report of the mission can be found on the ESA website.

The GIOVE-B satellite was lofted into a medium altitude orbit around the earth by a Soyuz/Fregat rocket departing from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan by launch operator Starsem. Lift-off occurred at 04:16 local time on 27 April (00:16 Central European Summer Time). The Fregat upper stage performed a series of manoeuvres to reach a circular orbit at an altitude of about 23 200 km, inclined at 56 degrees to the Equator, before safely delivering the satellite into orbit some 3 hours and 45 minutes later. The two solar panels that generate electricity to power the spacecraft deployed correctly and were fully operational by 05:28 CEST.

We look forward now to the switch on of the payload, when finally we will have available a signal-in-space very close to the final Galileo signal to test.