Norway joins Galileo project
The Norwegian government will give a boost by providing 68.9 million euros (92.5 million dollars) towards the 3.4 billion euro project. While Norway is not a member of the 27-member bloc, the

country’s economy and business minister Sylvia Brustad said it was important that Oslo took part in Galileo’s development. “The project will be of huge importance for the development of the European space industry and it is therefore important that Norwegian businesses are now able to compete,” Brustad said in a statement. In

September, the European Commission and the European Space Agency, which includes Norway as a member, shortlisted 11 European firms which are bidding for future contracts connected to Galileo. www.newsabout- space.org/story/157986254.html

On August 21, 2008 the cabinet approved the proposal of the Department of Land Resources (DoLR), Ministry of Rural Development to merge two existing centrally sponsored schemes and replace them with the modifi ed scheme of National Land Records Modernization Program (NLRMP). The two schemes being merged are the Strengthening of Revenue Administration & Updating of Land Records (SRA&ULR) and Computerization of Land Records (CLR).

RISAT – ISRO’s SAR satellite, launched
ISRO’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C12), on April 20, 2009 successfully placed two satellites – RISAT-2 and ANUSAT – in the desired orbit. RISAT-2 is a Radar Imaging Satellite with the capability to take images of the earth during day and night as well as cloudy conditions. This satellite will enhance ISRO’s capability for earth observation, especially during disaster management. ANUSAT, built by Anna University, Chennai is the first experimental communication satellite built by an Indian University under the guidance of ISRO and will demonstrate the technologies related to message store and forward operations. www.isro.org

EXPRESSMaps delivers detailed maps in 6 hours
Spot Image and Infoterra are launching www.express-maps.com to deliver detailed basemaps covering over three quarters of the Earth’s land surfaces. This service creates 1:50000 basemaps, which can be delivered electronically in just 6 hours. It is mainly aimed at civil protection agencies, military and humanitarian aid teams in crisis management situations. www.infoterra.fr

China launches navigation satellite
China launched Beidou-2 (or Compass- G2) – their second geostationary navigation satellite recently. The Compass constellation comprises 31 satellites – 27 MEO satellites and 4 geostationaries. BeiDou-2 is reported to have a lifespan of 8 years. The first phase of the project will provide coverage for Chinese territory – ultimately giving global cover. www.nasaspaceflight.com

Galileo and China’s Compass argue over frequencies
The Christian Science Monitor reports that China’s insistence on using the same radio frequency as Galileo may render some features of the European system unusable in the event of a crisis. China’s membership of “Galileo,” has soured to the point where the two sides are locked in a dispute over radio frequencies, as China races ahead with its own network of satellites. Without an agreement, China would be able to frustrate European military forces’ efforts to deny a future enemy crucial satnav capability. http://survapedia. com/2009/03/galileo-china-argue/

April 2009

GEO Siberia 2009

21-23 April

Novosibirsk, Russian

nenash@sibfair.ru

http://www.geosiberia.sibfair.ru

Defence Geospatial Intelligence Middle East

26 – 29 April

Dubai

enquiry@iqpc.ae

http://www.geospatialdefence.com

May 2009

ENC-GNSS 2009 )

3-6 May

Naples, Italy

http://www.enc.gnss09.it

International Conference on Integrated Navigation Systems

25-27 May

Saint Petersburg, …

Till almost early seventies, Survey of India was synonymous with the surveying profession in India. That situation does not exist any more. The reason is not far to find out… Many new organizations, have carved out their own niche in the domain of the surveying and mapping. These new entities have been generally propelled either by the new technology eg satellite imagery or due to unmet demand of a particular type of information – example, Forest Survey of India…

Because of the MEMS inertial sensors being more and cheaper, most studies focus on their applications. It is known that the simple principle and construction of the MEMS accelerometer make it is possible to improve the performance of MEMS accelerometers faster than that of gyros, so most efforts are done to use only the linear accelerometers forming the IMU called IMU-BA which has the potential market in the land and air navigation system, such as the car…

Exploring the moon in three dimension
P K Srivastava, B Gopala Krishna and Amitabh
A sensor architecture for high precision UAS navigation
Luca Garbarino, Vittorio Di Vito, Ettore De Lellis, Carmine Marrone, Federico Corraro
Calibration Method of IMU Based only accelerometers
Wu Junwei
Taking Geomatics to greater heights in India
P Misra