Launch, deploy, and operate “22 satellites in less than 3 years.” That’s two satellites every three months, leading to a four-at-once launch in 2014. And that’s the challenge that Europe and the European Space Agency (ESA) now face.

This pointed call to action during the opening plenary of the European Navigation Conference (ENC) came from Didier Faivre, director of Galileo Programme and Navigation Related Activities at ESA. It was the only somber note sounded during the keynote speeches, which otherwise paraded the stirring recent accomplishments of the Galileo In-Orbit Validation (IOV) phase. IOV now concludes, and Galileo’s operational phase opens.

The ENC takes place in Vienna, Austria this week (April 23–25), hosted by the Austrian Institute of Navigation. Privately and informally, a handful of knowledgeable conference attendees expressed confidence that OHB System can furnish the completed satellites, at least, according to schedule. OHB System is the prime contractor for  construction of 22 Full Operational Capability (FOC) Galileo satellites and is responsible for developing the satellite bus and for integrating the satellites. Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. (SSTL) is developing and constructing the navigation payload and  assisting OHB with final satellite assembly.

“Using only European tools and means, European ground infrastructure deployed on European territory, our conception, machine and design, is totally validated,” stated Faivre, referring to the recent Galileo-only positioning fix by ESA. The March 12, 2013, event marks “the end of the beginning,” and culminates 12 years of intense work at all levels of European industry.

“Europe is at par with GPS” with performance as expected. “I hope that soon our U.S. colleagues will be jealous of our performance,” Faivre stated, implying yet again the persistent Galileo claim that the system will be more accurate than GPS. He returned to this theme with reference to Fugro’s accomplishment of real-time precise point positioning at the centimeter level.

He acknowledged that “It’s a technological competition with the United States, Russia, and China,” even though all may be friendly and collegial.

In that competitive light, “the success of Galileo will be measured by the number of users,” and not by the number of satellites, or the degree of accuracy, or the strength of the signal.

Previously, the ENC audience had heard from Ingolf Schädler that “Europe has closed the gap with the technological superpowers,” in what “may be the most complex invention ever of mankind, the system of navigation that is GNSS.” He also made a proud reference to Austrian-produced signal generators aboard Galileo’s orbiting IOV satellites. Schädler is the deputy director general of innovation for the Austrian federal Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology.

“We have reached cruising speed,” announced the third keynote speaker, Carlo des Dorides of the European GNSS Agency (GSA). He was referring explicitly to the re-positioning of the GSA headquarters from Brussels to Prague, but the remarks reverberated to the Galileo program as a whole.

David Blanchard, deputy head of unit, EU Satellite Navigation Programmes for the European Commission, quoted an unnamed U.S. publication: “With the capability to make a position fix from four signal-broadcasting satellites, we can now say that Galileo has truly arrived.”

That statement appeared in the May 2013 GPS World, an issue of the magazine that was distributed in conference bags to all attendees at the ENC.

Blanchard then shifted the focus slightly from Galileo, to Galileo together with the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS), Europe’s satellite-based augmentation service that also broadcasts GPS corrections. “We have to make sure that all the capabilities afforded by EGNOS are realized.” He also made strong references to the EGNOS Data Access Service (EDAS).

Blanchard cited a current ongoing study that shows that 6 to 7 percent of European gross domestic product (GDP) is dependent upon GNSS.

“A gold mine within arm’s reach of European industry” was how Gard Ueland, head of Galileo Services, characterized the present situation. “Development of European downstream market is crucial; it also has to bring more benefits to European society.” Galileo Services will host a workshop of  industry stakeholders in late October, at the OHB System premises in Bremen, Germany. Watch GPS World Events calendar and news for an announcement with specific dates.

Having attained altitude and cruising speed, the Galileo program must now shift to warp speed to hit its goals on time: 18 satellites in orbit by the end of 2014, and a total of 26 by the end of 2015. Early services by the end of 2014, and full services in 2016. Stable, continuous services, as Blanchard emphasized.

Better go to overdrive.

That’s been one of the mantras — a controversial one, granted — of technological advance in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. It has succeeded in penetrating the global positioning, navigation, and timing vanguard, as evidenced by a handful of key presentations on the first day of the Institute of Navigation (ION) International Technical Meeting in San Diego on Monday.

Skybox Imaging, a company that is “passionate about bringing Moore’s Law to space via disruptive microsatellite technology, rapid development cycles, and a scalable web-based delivery platform,” spoke to the ION ITM plenary session in the person of Ronny Votel, an engineer leading the company’s guidance, navigation and control division. Skybox’s goal is to provide “easy access to reliable and frequent high-resolution images . . . through a “constellation of imaging microsatellites delivering high-resolution imagery of any spot on Earth multiple times per day.”

To achieve that goal, Skybox is developing a low-cost imaging satellite system:

• design life of the satellites, 3 years;
• size of the satellites, a mini-fridge;
• size of the constellation, in the tens.

Skybox will pair that flying system with web-accessible big data processing platform to capture video or images of any location on Earth within a couple of days — an unheard of delivery turnaround in the current global imaging industry, unless you happen to be a government (as in central, high, federal, perhaps military) customer.

The low-cost nature of the satellite opens the possibility of deploying tens of satellites which, when integrated together, have the potential to image any spot on Earth within an hour. Votel several times made the analogy in his talk of using an iPhone camera to capture desired imagery, and indeed that could be a next logical step in FBC development: just throw a bunch of camera phones up into orbit.

Skybox expects to launch its first two satellites later this year.

In April of last year, Wired published a fascinating history and analysis: “Smaller, Quicker, Secret, Robotic: Inside America’s New Space Force.” Between Between 1992 and 1999, the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched 16 faster, smaller, cheaper missions, including Mars probes and space telescopes. Ten missions succeeded; six failed. Analysts declared the initiative a failure, and to a large extent it has been forsaken. Recent public writings, though, show second thinking. “I would like to respectfully suggest that success-per-dollar is a more meaningful measurement of achievement than success per-attempt,” stated one Air Force lieutenant colonel in a treatise on program management lessons from NASA.

Could such an approach work for GNSS satellites, some of which are burdened with extraneous non-PNT payloads that make them far from FSC? Time will tell the wiser.

Microtechnology

In that FSC vein, at one of the afternoon’s technical sessions, Andrei Shkel of UC-Irvine had been scheduled to deliver a paper on “Precision Navigation and Timing Enabled by Microtechnology,” but apparently something came up and he was not able to appear. I had looked forward very much to what I anticipated would be an update to his September 2011 article in GPS World, “Microtechnology Comes of Age,” which was itself an update to a plenary talk he gave at ION ITM back in 2011. For now, that article will have satisfy us.

Other presentations in the same MEMS, atomic clock, and MicroPNT session:

Michael Bulatowicz of Northrop Grumman talked about a DARPA-backed project, the nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) gyroscope. Northrop’s development and research has shown a viable solution to producing a small (size of a U.S. quarter coin) low-power navigation grade gyro using non-vibratory technology. The company has produced two prototypes and is at work on two more. Feed the NMR gyro into Shkel’s work and who knows what you’ll get in terms of FBC PNT? Well, maybe not cheaper in the immediate future. Bulatowicz said that as an assembled device he expected its cost, at least initially, to be substantially higher than MEMS technology.

Richard Waters of Lumedyne Technologies spoke on next-generation MEMS inertial sensors with white-noise characteristics, a new paradigm based on time-domain switching for how MEMS sensors might work. TDS inertial sensors provide some key benefits: a purely digital approach, recalibration due to bias drift is not required, output is independent of oscillator conditions. Power is low, less than 1 millwatt. The device demonstrated switch stability under static conditions to –170 db. The same TDS concept can also be applied to a mechanical gyro.

QZSS

In other ION ITM first-day news, H. Tokura of the Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology talked about “The Possibility of Precise Automobile Navigatin using GPS/QZS and Galileo E5 Pseudoranges.” Currently, research and prototype automobile high-precision PNT is done with real-time kinematic (RTK) networks, but this has some disadvantages, as discussed in an article by authors from the University of Nottingham, UK, in the February issue of GPS World.

Japan’s QZSS now broadcasts L5 signals. Japan has essentially leapfrogged the United States, since the L5 signals with full CNAV message is already broadcast by satellite QZSS-1. Currently, three U.S. GPS satellites are L5 CNAV-capable, but none are broadcasting such a signal.

Tokura showed results demonstrating that pseudorange observables from L5 are basically robust enough for this task. Further investigation for L5 is required because manufacturers are still developing the tracing technique for the new L5 signal. A software-defined receiver is indicated for usage.

Hideki Yamada of Japan’s Electronic Navigation Research Institute spoke about the possibility of using only the QZSS constellation, “in case of GPS failure,” for RTK positioning in precision ag and machine control, with 4 to 7 QZSS satellites that could be launched in a future version of the constellation. QZSS has been shown to provide 10-meter accuracy in absence of GPS; now the research looks at an RTK method.

With only one satellite in orbit, RTK-QZSS cannot be tested in the field. The researchers simulated a fuller constellation by using QZS-1, Multifunctional Transport Satellites (MTSAT), a set of geostationary weather and aviation control satellites, and GPS signals. Using a JAVAD Alpha receiver, Trimble and NovAtel antennas, they obtained results with low multipath error (about 30 centimeters) in a Tokyo environment. Multi-epoch processing is necessary for RTK-QZSS. This solution can work well as a minimum backup system of high-precision position under relatively moderate DOP condition.

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Living may be easy, dying may be hard. But I’m wide awake, staying up late, sending my regards.

Not planned for in the sense of actually making provision for.  Seeing if there’s enough resource on hand. Calculating if the ecosystem will handle it.

No, wireless carriers and everyone else involved in this industry make money on data. So let’s make, make, make, more, more, more.

Did anyone happen to estimate the amount of bandwidth needed to upload and download all this data? Has anyone thought about what pressure it might bring on other spectrum users such as, perhaps, GNSS?

My guess is no, and no, and we don’t care. Because we are creating the future, don’t you see?!!?

From this brave new world sprang LightSquared, born of the ravenous need for more wireless data. It doesn’t take much time at the Mobile World Congress to see that venture as just the first very tentative probe. Armies are massed at our borders.

I didn’t get to location as a blue-chip commodity, as promised yesterday. That will have to come tomorrow.