India goes to Mars

Lost its way
Galileo 5 and 6, the pair of Galileo satellites,
Were launched on Aug 22, 2014.
Instead of the expected circular orbit.
They were released on a lower and elliptical orbit,
Although the ‘wayward’ satellites are said to be safely under control,
Studies are being conducted to determine
The scope of the anomaly
And its impact on the mission
Are yet to …

Wishful thinking

Some recent announcements,

Especially in the Union Budget of India for fiscal year 2014 -15.

Rs 7,060 crore for ‘100 Smart Cities’ project,

INSPIRE Inspires
Sincere initiatives to success stories
Various national endeavors to regional ambitions
Sustained efforts to impatience for success
Data, metadata, architecture to complex technicalities
Growing complexities to varied user demands
Investments to return on investments
Many such issues were discussed at
INSPIRE (INfrastructure for SPatial InfoRmation in Europe) 2014 conference
In an ambience of positivity and hope, at Aalborg, Demark.
The INSPIRE directive came …

With the formation of a stable government in India,

That too with stated emphasis on infrastructure development…

Outsmarting outages
The reported outages in Glonass
Not once, but twice in the last month
Triggers enough warning signals
Towards GNSS vulnerability.
Some of the experts have been alerting the GNSS community
On various threats and vulnerability,
Though many considered them as exaggeration.
With such incidences
And with increasing dependence on GNSS
Especially mission critical applications,
Hope actions will precede disasters
And not the other way round.

Bal …

IRNSS – IB: Another step forward
April 4, 2014.
ISRO’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, PSLV-C24, successfully launched IRNSS-1B.
The second satellite of the seven constituting the Indian
Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS).
The fi rst one was successfully launched on July 02, 2013.
Two more satellites of this constellation, namely, IRNSS-1C and IRNSS-
1D, are planned to be launched in the second …

WAAS, EGNOS, GAGAN, MSAS, SDCM, K-SBAS …

All SBASs are regional systems.

The need of a seamless transition between SBAS service areas

Not only underlines the importance of adequate cooperation

But also makes issues of compatibility and interoperability critical.

GAGAN certification
Satellite Based Augmentation System gets another boost,
As India joins USA, Japan and Europe to implement the operational SBAS.
GAGAN (GPS Aided GEO Augmented Navigation) achieves
RNP 0.1 certifi cation on December 30, 2013.
Type 2 message will be available in February 2014.
This enables Indian Flight Information Region (FIR) to support satellite based
augmentation services for precision navigation by …

America freezes and Australia sweats.

With weather becoming more chaotic than erratic

The consequences of climate change

Appears to be getting worse