Wide Awake in the Dirt
June 3, 2009 By: Alan Cameron
July 27. Compass Awry
Following World War II, a certain Asian country pulled itself up by its industrial bootstraps, flooding U.S. markets with vast numbers of cheap and often knocked-off goods, not known for their durability. Much has changed since then, and manufactured merchandise bearing the label “Made in Japan” is now generally regarded as having very high quality and durability, stemming from thoroughgoing and original design, precise factory tooling, and rigorous product control.
Several other Asian countries have followed that path, entering low and finishing high, or at least higher than they started. China is the latest entrant to open Western markets, and has relied on its sheer size, economies of scale, low labor costs, and other factors to export unprecedented numbers of container loads of relatively low-cost goods.
When China announced its plans for a global navigation satellite system of its own, along with an aggressive operational date, many quailed. Would it beat Galileo to the punch? Would it overtake the reviving GLONASS? It might have . . . but.
Turns out that mounting a precise orbiting system tough enough to withstand the rigors of space while outputting extremely high-quality data needs a bit different manufacturing ethic than, say, car parts or even flat-panel televisions.
As reported here back in May, “China claims it may add as many as 10 more spacecraft to the global constellation by the end of 2010, with a goal of filling out a fleet of 30, in both geostationary and medium-Earth orbits, by 2015.” Let’s all keep open mind until they actually do launch that number, and maybe a bit further out, until we see how long those satellites last in space, broadcasting a usable signal.
Not that other countries are immune to failures in satellite design, components, assembly, or management. The GIOVE-B satellite fried its own circuits in the testing lab and put itself back by a year. The GPS IIR(M)-20 has well-publicized problems with larger-than-expected pseudorange errors, and the IIF — well, we just don’t know very much yet about the two satellites of that generation that are nearing launch, but they have had their histories already. GLONASS satellites, of course, have made short life on orbit their byword.
This is rocket science. It is extremely difficult, extremely rigorous, and takes extremely painstaking work — theoretical, mathematical, and practical — in ground, space, and user segments to accomplish the levels of performance that are required by satellite positioning. GPS has made such a blazing success since its start that we may expect too much, too soon from other systems. And even from GPS itself.
Never a dull moment, at any rate.
July 8, 2009. A Song Not for Now You Need Not Put Stay
The AIRE demonstration flights described in my July editorial, Next Is the New Now, may help the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) get attention in Congress for reliable, continuous funding to NextGen, which will require billions of dollars. Already some warn that ultimate NextGen costs remain uncertain, and that the FAA flightpath may encounter turbulence and a few obstacles.
Whether Now or Next, these avionics tools and tactics will increase airspace capacity, permitting planes to fly closer together laterally, in safety, because the GPS positioning, tracking, and monitoring provides more precision, more accuracy than that provided by ground-based radars.
One knowledgeable person commented, “NextGen sounds good, but mandatory equipage is something the FAA doesn’t like to do since it is usually rejected by the airlines. Also, many aircraft do not have the data link that can assist in the new procedures.”
The NextGen plans are at the following two sites:
The Joint Planning and Development Office
The Next Generation Air Transportation System
They present an integrated set of plans to accomplish the NextGen.
See also the NextGen Implementation Plan (NGIP), a 62-page PDF summary.
Other scuttlebutt coming my way after a WAAS and FAA story earlier this year:
“I think it would be useful if GPS World asked the FAA how many true GPS/WAAS approaches were actually executed compared to ILS approaches at U.S. airports,” wrote in one reader. “The reason I ask is that we discovered that none are executed at LAX while trying to coordinate frequencies for satellite testing at the Boeing Satellite Factory in El Segundo. There were at least five approach plates on the books at the time. But, since the airliners weren't equipped with WAAS, and the local airport does everything on voice, radar and ILS control, the WAAS approaches are not used.
“Are we building a highway, publishing maps for it and then no one drives on it? People take the train instead?
“The real metric in my mind should be usage, not paper approaches. I guess you need paper to have usage, but at some point we need to move to the next phase or the paper is worthless.
“Just a thought.”
Another reader replied to the gentleperson above, in the course of an informal e-mail thread among several avionically versed higher-ups, “The approach plates for DCA still have an NDB approach published to runway 33 (I believe). Nobody flies it, but it's still on the books. I'd bet if you asked ATC for clearance to fly it, they'd have a fit.”
June 24, 2009. Everyone's Master
We should all take a quiet moment to reflect on what we have wrought upon society, and in so doing, upon ourselves. This occasioned by a recent ruling from the New York Court of Appeals, the highest of that state’s courts. The majority of the justices said that police should have obtained a search warrant before attaching a GPS tracking device to a suspect's car for a 65-day period.
The ruling stems from the Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures, and raises important questions about how much we want to protect ourselves from criminals, versus how much we want to protect ourselves from unrestricted surveillance.
What if an unrestricted, all-powerful secret government agency had your every movement under its eye? The anonymity, privacy, and security we generally take for granted as we go about our business, errands, or pleasure, don’t really exist anymore, now that GPS monitoring can be accomplished so easily.
On the other hand, as one of the New York justices points out, "criminals can, and will, use the most modern and efficient tools available to them, and will not get warrants before doing so. To limit police use of the same tools is to guarantee that the efficiency of law enforcement will increase more slowly than the efficiency of law breakers."
A legal writer on this topic, Sherry Colb at FindLaw.com, recalls a much earlier warning from Justice William O. Douglas, long before the advent of GPS: "Today no one perhaps notices because only a small, obscure criminal is the victim. But every person is the victim, for the technology we exalt today is everyman's master."
June 4, 2009. We Don't Do Analysis, Saith the GAO.
We caught up with the GAO's full report today, posting the link to the complete 61-page version to our news section. It includes important figures and core discussions missing in the other. Two versions of the document -- bearing the same title!! -- were published. Turns out the one we had been touting was the shorter, 15-page version presented as part of Congressional testimony. The longer was the full report commissioned by and delivered to the same Congressional committee that held the hearing a week after receiving the report.
Hairsplitting, maybe. But the longer version has an even direr outlook, at least if you examine Figure 5, and its probability predictions of how many GPS satellites we may have helping us out in less than a decade. You could count them all on your fingers and toes.
Overall, the report has roiled up a ruckus in government acquisition and contractor circles, not to mention raised the alarum for both consumers and those looking out for the warfighters. Ignorance of the former group was amply demonstrated by callers-in to the Air Force's well-intentioned Twitter conference. But then, you don't have to pass an IQ test to buy a cell phone.
On close reading, it's all based on old data, anyway. And some of that data inaccurate to begin with, and some data analysis also inaccurate.
When questioned privately and offline on this, a GAO staffer reportedly stated, "We don't do analysis. We do reports. We don't care that much about the inaccuracies. If it got your attention, it served its purpose."
I reckon it did.
June 3, 2009. What Is the Plural of Furor?
If the plural of forum is fora, would furor be fura? Or maybe furies.
Whatever, we have plenty on our hands. The manufacturers of the DAGR dispute the accuracy of an unofficial word we printed on that subject, folks in the know about the GAO Report think the IIF has gotten way too much blame in the modernization scapegoating, and all my sermonizing about interference actually drew an agreement of sorts, that DHS should not be the decisionmaker in these regards.
You can read it all in the Letters to the Editor page in the July issue, now in preparation.
And — this just in — I went overboard in last week's System Design newsletter column in interpreting PNT Advisory Board presentations. Even though I stated that my "interpretations" were emphatically not part of the original, some people chose to read them that way.
So far, I haven't managed to alienate our readers in the Galileo infrastructure. At least they haven't let me know, if so. I should think they'll be very pleased with the dual (duelling) cover stories in the June issue just out: L5 analysis on the GPS side, with a prototype L1/E5 receiver on the Galileo side.
Journalists love controversy. It shows people are reading. It shows they care.
Sleep was what I wanted. You know what I got.
Wide awake. Staying up late. Wishing I was not.
RSS
Become a Fan
Join our Network
Follow Us
Please send any technical comments or questions to our webmaster.