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Geo Informatics 1-2008
article geostationary satellites as well as 30 medium earth orbit satellites. according to xinhua more satellite launches are set for 2008. irnss india, which in 2006 unveiled plans for the indian region navigation satellite system (irnss), has recently updated the status of this system. the indian space research organization is almost ready to build a prototype satellite, with the design for the actual satellites being nearly complete. the complete system will have seven satellites: three geostationary as well as four in a geosynchronous orbit at 29° to the equatorial plane. india expects to launch the first satellite in 2010 with the system becoming fully operational in 2012. irnss differs from systems such as gps, glonass and galileo in that it does not use the l-radio band for transmission of the signals. since this band is slightly overcrowded with all the existing (and future) navigation systems, india has opted for the s-band (two frequencies separated by 350 mhz) glonass after a long period of silence, the russians have resumed the glonass launching schedule. part of the delay was the crash of a proton rocket with a japanese satellite on board in september 2007. on october 26, 2007 three satellites were launched that were declared operational in early december 2007. of the three, one is currently switched off temporarily. on december 25, 2007 another three satellites were successfully launched; at this time it is not known whether they are operational or not. the total number of active satellites is now 12, excluding the three recently launched. with these last two launches glonass is a big step further on the way to becoming fully operational, which is still slated to be sometime in 2008. corporation (japan) to acquire all outstanding shares of sokkia company ltd. (japan) on december 10, making it a wholly-owned subsidiary of topcon corporation. it is planned that the business integration will be completed by april 1, 2011. after the business integration topcon will be responsible for, among other things, the development (and manufacture) of gps equipment and machine control systems whilst sokkia will be responsible for the total station. hexagon acquires novatel in october 2007 hexagon (sweden) took over novatel (canada) by acquiring all the outstanding shares. novatel has been a core supplier of these technologies to hexagon’s subsidiary leica geosystems since 2002. no further mention was made about future development at novatel, though. us dgps chain the us coast guard, which operates a freely usable dgps network around the waterways and coasts of the us, has awarded a contract for as many as 400 reference stations to trimble. the contract is the result of a major upgrade of the current network, which was under a lot of fire with waas becoming operational in the usa. the coast guard dgps service is required to deliver 10-meter accuracy, but typically delivers accuracies of 1 to 3 meters in all established coverage areas. systems similar to the us coast guard system are placed around the world by the international association of lighthouse authorities (iala) of which the us coast guard is a member. the systems are placed and operated under the international safety of life at sea conference (solas). om ordpress.c e: www. w ) huibert-jan lekkerkerk hlekkerkerk@geoinformatics.com is project manager at idsw and a freelance writer and trainer. this article reflects his personal opinion. galileo on november 23, 2007 the eu member states (european parliament) backed the 2.4 billion euro funding package proposed by the european commission. the money is now definitely to come from unspent farm subsidies (1.6 billion euros) and money that was earmarked for r&d (0.8 billion euros). as a result the individual states do not have to find additional money to keep system development on track. this however does not mean that no costs are involved; it has been eu practice to return unspent budget funds to the member states. on november 30 the eu transport ministers met to discuss how to progress with galileo. they reached a unanimous decision on how to procure the galileo contracts. the discussions were more political than economic in nature however. for example, germany, which has a large aerospace industry, maintained that countries that have such an industry should get a larger share in the project. another hurdle was spain, which has a stake in the building of the ground station for the galileo safety of life services. the procurement agreement reached should ensure competition among contractors and as such reduce costs, according to eu transport commissioner jacques barrot. spain will get the ground station but it will have to be funded by spain and not by the european union. latest news? visit www.geoinformatics.com irnss on (sourc constellati takeover(s) apart from the takeover of teleatlas by tomtom (currently under investigation by the european commission) and navteq by nokia, two major takeovers have taken place in the past few months that could very well impact the gnss industry. topcon takes over sokkia the japanese fair trade commission has approved the tender offer from topcon january/february 2008 21
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