Pnt media items 7/2/2013 glonass (Russia)
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- PNT MEDIA ITEMS 7/2/2013 GLONASS (Russia): Russian Rocket Crashes, Three GLONASS Satellites Lost
- IRNSS (India): ISROs Navigational Satellite Will Help Aviation Industry
- India Launches First Navigation Satellite
- WAAS: WAAS Delivers on Promises and Signals Further Innovation
- Ensuring Accurate Data
- Future Precision Approach Coming
- GPS Jamming: What Are We Going To Do About GPS Jamming
- Miscellaneous: Navy Closes in on Making Landing on Aircraft Carrier Safer
PNT MEDIA ITEMS 7/2/2013 GLONASS (Russia): Russian Rocket Crashes, Three GLONASS Satellites Lost GPS World 02 July 2013 A Russian Proton-M rocket carrying three GLONASS navigation satellites crashed soon after liftoff today from Kazakhstan’s Baikonur cosmodrome, reports rt.com (Russia Today). About 10 seconds after takeoff at 02:38 UTC, the rocket swerved, began to correct, but then veered in the opposite direction. It then flew horizontally and started to come apart with its engines in full thrust. Making an arc in the air, the rocket plummeted to Earth and exploded on impact close to another launch pad used for Proton commercial launches. The crash was broadcast live across Russia. Fears of a possible toxic fuel leak immediately surfaced following the incident, but no such leak has been confirmed, rt.com reports. The rocket was initially carrying more than 600 tons of toxic propellants. No casualties or damage to surroundings structures or the town of Baikonur have been reported. As RT.com reports, the crashed Proton-M rocket employed a DM-03 booster, which was being used for the first time since December 2010, when another Proton-M rocket with the same booster failed to deliver another three GLONASS satellites into orbit, crashing into the Pacific Ocean 1,500 kilometers from Honolulu. IRNSS (India): ISRO's Navigational Satellite Will Help Aviation Industry Deccan Chronicle 02 July 2013 Pilots and air traffic controllers have called ISRO’s Indian Regional Navigational Satellite System (IRNSS) a boon to the Indian aeronautical sector as they would get micro-level Indian data from the indigenous satellite system. “It is a great achievement by ISRO. We will now have our own satellites to access global positions. Till today, we have been using GPS owned by the US and Russia’s Glonass for our air navigation,” said V. Somasundaram, member, Air Navigation Services, Airports Authority of India (AAI). Pointing out that these global satellites are free of cost and used by all countries across the globe as per their requirements, Somasundaram noted that it would be reliable and advantageous to have our own satellites. “ISRO is poised to launch a couple of satellites and in the next stage. It would be on a par with GPS,” he added. He noted that the pilots have on board systems that use GPS (global positioning system) to identify coordinates and act accordingly. Similarly, the air traffic controllers would also use GPS to find the actual position of the aircraft. “The satellite would help us get a clear position of the aircraft with just a plus or minus three metres variation. Further, we also need not depend on external agencies,” said Air Traffic Controllers Guild (India), president D.S. Raghavan. However, according to S.V. Satish, GM, Gagan project, it might take sometime for the aviation industry in India to start using this satellite. “We have to integrate this satellite with Gagan (GPS and geo-augmented navigation) system and then take permission from the International Civil Aviation Organisation to use it,” he pointed out. Saying that many satellites are now put into space, he said we have to wait and watch, how it develops in the future. Informed sources said the satellite would have more defence-oriented use and help space research. India Launches First Navigation Satellite GPS World 01 July 2013 The first satellite of the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) was successfully launched today. The launch of IRNSS-1A occurred on schedule at is scheduled for 18:13 UTC from the spaceport of Sriharikota. Liftoff from the first launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre occurred on schedule at 18:11 UTC. The 1,425-kg satellite was launched by the XL version of India’s rocket PSLV-C22, or Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle. Solar panel deployment was confirmed and the satellite has power and is operating nominally according to reports. The IRNSS-1A satellite is the first of seven that will make up the IRNSS. The constellation will consist of four satellites in geosynchronous orbits inclined at 29 degrees, with three more in geostationary orbit. IRNSS-1A is one of the geosynchronous satellites, and is expected to be positioned at a longitude of 55 degrees east. WAAS: WAAS Delivers on Promises and Signals Further Innovation BY: JOHN SHERIDAN Aviation International News 01 July 2013 If ever there was a Comeback Kid in avionics, it would have to be the FAA’s wide area augmentation system (WAAS). Heralded by the agency in 1994 as the future Swiss Army knife of navigation, WAAS was going to bring greater accuracy and enhanced reliability to the sometimes unpredictable GPS and, in so doing, promised a new era where satellites would replace not only the nation’s NDBs and VORs, but also the more than 600 Category 1 ILS installations in the National Airspace System at the time. Development would cost more than $300 million, and take about four years. But by 2000, WAAS was hanging by a thin thread. The basic concept may have been great, but achievement was abysmal. By then on its third contractor, the program had run into unexpected problems, costs were nearing $1 billion, delivery was expected to be five years late, and Congress was threatening cancellation, with one member describing the whole program as a boondoggle. Fast forward to mid-2013. By dint of major engineering efforts–and unspecified added investment–by prime contractor Raytheon, FAA Technical Center engineers and industry specialists, WAAS has fought its way back to the top. Now vindicated, the system is providing high-accuracy approach guidance to aircraft equipped only with a GPS/WAAS receiver, at airports lacking any landing aids whatsoever. Currently, the system provides more than 5,700 instrument approach procedures across the NAS, including 800 in support of ILS Category 1-like 200-foot decision heights, and with a reported 65,000 users from small general aviation aircraft to large airline and corporate jets. Today, WAAS is bringing business aviation a level of safety and reliability far superior to those of the old days of NDB and VOR step-down approaches to less well equipped airports. A not-yet-released ICAO list shows WAAS certifications in virtually all models of business aircraft from Bombardier, Cessna, Dassault, de Havilland, Embraer, Gulfstream, Hawker, Israel, Piaggio and Saab. The same “all models” WAAS certification is also true of Boeing and Airbus, with the exceptions of Boeing’s 787 and Airbus’s A380 (although the new Airbus A350 and the company’s earlier Beluga mother ship, which transports fuselage sections and wings between factories, are WAAS equipped). We should also include McDonnell Douglas too, since Delta Air Lines–with a large number of MD-88s and MD-90s–ordered WAAS for its whole MD fleet last month. And to complete the record, we should note that CMC Electronics, Garmin, Honeywell, Rockwell Collins and Universal all produce certified WAAS avionics units. Ensuring Accurate Data So what has made the big difference between the earlier “raw” GPS and WAAS, and caused the market swing toward WAAS? It can be attributed primarily to the continuing engineering efforts in refining the algorithms and accuracy of the basic signals transmitted from the 30 moving satellites of the main GPS constellation. To pilots, these delicate but essential improvements present themselves mainly when a non-WAAS receiver shows you somewhere on the runway, while a WAAS receiver would show you within a couple of meters of the centerline. An important step here lies in the precise monitoring of the GPS signals. Across the U.S., Canada and Mexico, high-precision GPS monitor receivers at fixed, accurately surveyed geographic locations continuously receive positions derived from the “raw” GPS signals the satellites transmit. The difference between those positions and the known surveyed location shows the local GPS position error. It’s then necessary to get those error corrections into user receivers on earth, at sea or in the air. This is the task of the WAAS satellites, three of which are in geostationary orbit above North America and which appear to us to be fixed in space, far above the regular GPS constellation orbiting the earth. A terrestrial WAAS master station continuously gathers these local errors, converts them to local error corrections and beams them up to the WAAS satellite, which then retransmits them down over a very wide area (hence the system’s name) to all GPS receivers in view. However, the errors measured by a monitor station in, say, Texas, won’t be the same as those measured in Alaska, due to the constantly changing geometry between individual satellites, and with them and the user, so there’s some pretty clever space geometry involved to ensure that the right error correction goes to the right area on earth. But when these corrections arrive at the user’s WAAS receiver, they are automatically applied to update the user’s position, and the operator never sees it happen, since WAAS is a never-ceasing process. Inevitably, of course, WAAS has brought with it terminology changes. The FAA still uses the term “WAAS,” but interchangeably with SBAS, for satellite-based augmentation system. That’s because SBAS is ICAO’s generic term for similar WAAS-like systems being implemented in Europe (Egnos), Russia (SCDM), India (Gagan), China (BeiDou) and Japan (M-SAS. Remember that “Category-1-like” claim? Even though a WAAS/SBAS procedure can take you down an approach slope essentially identical to the ILS, and usually to the same ceiling and visibility limits, Category 1, 2 and 3 are officially regarded as exclusive ILS descriptors, so the FAA calls the WAAS/SBAS precision approaches LPVs, for localizer precision with vertical guidance. So, for example, LPV200 or LPV350 are the proper terms. And to be fair, that’s not FAA fussiness: ILS has some significant, though non safety-related, technical differences from SBAS, so precise terminology can be important. Future Precision Approach Coming The big terminology leap will occur when we come to GLS, the future GPS landing system. Yes, there is a future precision approach system on its way, because despite the remarkable advances in using WAAS to bring GPS to ILS-equivalent Category 1 landing guidance standards virtually anywhere, WAAS appears technically unlikely to be able to enhance GPS to support the more demanding accuracy and performance equivalent to ILS Categories 2 and 3, with one of its major handicaps being that WAAS can’t provide an alert in less than six seconds following a failure; Categories 2 and 3 demand a one-second alert. So the agreed plan at ICAO, supported by the U.S., is to develop GPS to get to Categories 1, 2 and 3 by using a ground-based augmentation system (GBAS) instead of WAAS/SBAS. (Note that there’s no unique FAA term for GBAS: for us, it’s that or nothing.) GBAS is essentially a variant of WAAS/SBAS. That is, instead of having GPS signal monitors spread SBAS-like across thousands of miles, GBAS employs three or four ground-monitor stations around each airport to measure the local “raw” GPS errors more precisely. Those errors are then converted to error corrections and passed to the approaching aircraft over a dedicated VHF datalink (currently planned to be in the ILS/VOR frequency band), and are then applied to the aircraft’s receiver. Recall that SBAS can only provide approach procedures down to LPV on specified runways. The increased precision from the local corrections will allow GBAS to provide corrections to all an airport’s runways, from Category 1 to Category IIIB, assuming a supporting runway environment, plus selectable glidepaths and, for smaller aircraft, displaced touchdown points further along the runway. This is because the GBAS datalink can carry a lot more airport-specific information than just the GPS errors, and ICAO is studying these additional data options. Currently there are only a few GBAS installations around the world, operating primarily for system testing. However, systems at Newark and Houston are being flown in revenue service by United/former Continental 737s, as is a test installation flown by Air Berlin at Bremen, Germany, and by Qantas at Sydney and other airports in Australia, although the systems being used only support Category 1 service by approved operators. More correctly, flying GBAS to former ILS Category 1 limits is, in the new GBAS terminology, a GAST-C approach, while a Category 3 will be a GAST-D approach. GAST (for GBAS approach service type) is ICAO jargon for the next generation of landing guidance systems. And Category 2? Somewhat illogically, that’s undecided, and Category 2 could be either a GAST-E, or an advanced dual-frequency unit. And one day GAST-F, an advanced, multi-constellation, multi-frequency system having Category 3++ characteristics will arrive. GAST-A and -B, essentially less than Category 1 variants, are likely going to be pretty minor players in our future GAST-ly world. Where does ILS stand in all this? The FAA’s policy has been to maintain Category 3 ILS installations for the foreseeable future, since there is no clear date when GBAS will be able to replace them. Consequently, there is then no clear date when Category 3 operators will be able to remove their Category 3 avionics. Category 1 ILS presents a different quandary. Should GAST-C (Category 1 GBAS) ground systems and avionics be fully approved and available in, say, 2016, would operators install it–for better Category 1 services, and for use on non-ILS runways–while retaining their Category 3 ILS receivers? And should traffic increase at the small Airport X to the point that a Category 1 or equivalent approach aid is needed, the choice becomes a WAAS/SBAS LPV, or a Category 1 ILS, or a GAST-C. Even trickier is the choice of an airport’s precision approach system upgrade from Category 1 to a Category 2 or 3 service. Does an airport operator toss a coin to decide to install an expensive Category 3 ILS in the hope that most operators will continue to carry their Category 3 avionics for several more years, or does he bite the bullet and go for a much less costly GAST-D equivalent installation, on the assumption that if he builds it, they will come? And the opposite case is that of the aircraft operator’s quandary of reassuring himself that removing his ILS avionics won’t risk being unable to fly into some destination that doesn’t yet offer GBAS datalink service. ILS won’t disappear for quite a while. Hanging over all this is the reality that even while the future GPS III will reportedly have improved interference resistance, the threat of inadvertent or deliberate interference to SBAS and GBAS appears likely to remain with us for the foreseeable future. GPS Jamming: What Are We Going To Do About GPS Jamming? (opinion) BY: BOB BREWIN NextGov Not much, based on this updated report from the Department of Homeland Securty. DHS prepared a classified report on Global Positioning System vulnerabilities in November 2012 and the unclassified version, released last week, leaves much to worry about, including the fact that “Detecting, locating and disabling sources of GPS disruption remain a challenge.” The department suggests manual backups for GPS, which I imagine includes old-fashioned compasses and maps, but observed that “human skills for using manual techniques could erode due to lack of training and practice as GPS becomes more ubiquitous.” GPS signals sit at the core of the Federal Aviation Administration’s Next Generation Air Transportation System, provide timing signals for wired and wireless networks, guide precision munitions, help mariners navigate tough harbor approaches and are key to precision farming operations. But nowhere in the report does DHS suggest an automatic back-up system for the simple reason that one does not exist, even though the Department of Transportation’s John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center warned about the dangers of GPS jamming and called for development of an automatic back-up system in a report published 13 years ago. The Volpe report suggested a terrestrial backup GPS system based on an improved version of the WW II Long Range Navigation System, known as Loran, but the United States abandoned Loran due to the manning costs incurred by the Coast Guard, which literally blew up the tower of the Port Clarence, Alaska, station in 2010. South Korea, which has a lot of experience with GPS jamming by North Korea, plans to start installing a Loran system in 2016 with full operation planned by 2018 -- a better approach than a compass or map. Miscellaneous: Navy Closes in on Making Landing on Aircraft Carrier Safer Aviation E-news 01 July 2013 Landing on an aircraft carrier is now safer thanks to the Joint Precision Approach and Landing System (JPALS) team from the Naval Air Traffic Management Systems Program Office (PMA-213). JPALS is an all-weather landing system that uses a Global Positioning System and navigation systems to safely land both land- and sea-based aircraft. JPALS completed its latest round of testing aboard the USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) in late May. The 52-person team spent 11 days aboard the carrier testing the latest JPALS software with two F/A-18C Hornet aircraft from Air Test and Evaluation Squadron (VX) 23, and an MH-60S helicopter from Air Test and Evaluation Squadron (HX) 21, based at Naval Air Station Patuxent River. A modified Beechcraft King Air flying from St. Mary’s County Airport was also used as a test bed aircraft. “The Hornets flew 65 low approaches to touch-and-go or full-stop landings during our two weeks on CVN 77,” said Lee Mason, PMA-213’s JPALS Ship System integrated program team lead. “The King Air completed 29 low approaches. So far, we are very pleased with the results. The system is expected to achieve tremendously improved landing accuracy.” With the completion of this two-week test period, the JPALS program transitioned into the second phase of integrated test, establishing the system requirements verification for JPALS, Mason added. “The data generated from this two-week, at-sea period is undergoing detailed analysis by our experts. This analysis will, in turn, be used to validate and verify the system is accurate and working,” said Capt. Darrell Lack, PMA-213 program manager. Later this summer, JPALS is scheduled to complete additional at-sea testing to further refine the verification and validation effort and enable the completion of the operational assessment of the JPALS ship system, which is needed to progress to the program’s next milestone, Lack added. “JPALS will provide adverse weather, adverse terrain, day and night, and survivable precision approach and landing capability that supports service and multi-national interoperability,” Lack said. “It is particularly suitable for the F-35, future aircraft and unmanned air vehicle operations at sea.” -end- For information only. There is no guarantee for the accuracy of data. For more information, refer to the listed attribution. Directory: CORS CORS -> Exercise 3 corse 2007 Advanced Track CORS -> Economics and Finance CORS -> Climatic links CORS -> Alan Turing by Download 99.22 Kb. Share with your friends:
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