Eric D. Colburn, PLS

Professional Land Surveyor News

Brussels, 7 January 2010

Commission awards major contracts to make Galileo operational early 2014

The European Commission announced today the award of three of the six contracts for the procurement of Galileo’s initial operational capability. The contract for the system support services is awarded to ThalesAleniaSpace of Italy , that for a first order of 14 satellites to OHB System AG of Germany and that for the launch services to Arianespace of France. This will allow the initial deployment and service provision of Europe’s satellite navigation system as of early 2014.

Antonio Tajani, European Commission Vice-President in charge of Transport, said: “With this and the upcoming awards for the remaining procurement packages, we are concluding a critical phase of the Galileo programme. We can now focus on the actual roll-out and demonstrate to European citizens that Europe’s own satellite navigation system is firmly underway”.

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Multi-National Division Baghdad

Story by 1st Lt. Michael Lind

Engineer Troops Survey Liberty for New Maps

Check out the following information from the Office of Space Commercialization, on it’s Satellite Navigation page. There are a lot of good links and information about satellite GPS navigation.

The use of satellites for positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) has grown dramatically since the U.S. Government authorized civilian access to the Global Positioning System (GPS) in 1983. Thanks to the long-standing U.S. policy of making GPS freely available to the entire world, as well as a track record of highly dependable service, GPS has evolved from a neat gadget into a ubiquitous technology that is now fundamental to the global information infrastructure.

 GPS is a constellation of over 24 U.S. government satellites providing PNT services to an unlimited number of civilian and military users on a continuous, worldwide basis — free of direct user charges. Using the time and position data transmitted by the satellites, a GPS receiver can calculate its location on or above the surface of the Earth within a few meters. When used with an augmentation system, a receiver can attain much higher GPS accuracy — within centimeters, or even millimeters.

Today, GPS technology is in everything from cars and airplanes to Read the rest of this entry →