Fan Changlong, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, required researchers to beef up the security measures of the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) and increase its capacity to ward off interference. The BDS began providing services to civilian users in China and surrounding areas in the Asia-Pacifi c region recently. He said the system has broken China’s reliance on foreign navigation systems and carries great signifi cance in safeguarding national security and promoting economic development. www.spacedaily.com.

The municipality of Beijing is encouraging investment in the navigation and locationbased services industry, suggesting there is a market worth at least 50 billion yuan ($8 billion) by 2015 after China put its own satellite navigation network into commercial use.

The latest satellite in China’s Beidou-2 navigation system has been launched in Xichang. The system is expected to start providing positioning and navigation services for China and neighboring areas by the end of this year. And once the system is fully established by 2020, it will play a major role in the country’s economic development and national security.

The Japanese Cabinet Office issued an official announcement recently approving plans to procure and finance construction of the ground control system and the operation of the next phase of the Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS). Procurement is going to be carried out using PFi(private finance initiative) scheme.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Robust Robotics Group has developed a plane that can navigate itself without GPS. For decades, researchers have been working on creating helicopters that can pilot themselves without human guidance.

LONDON Sports fans attending the London Olympics were told to avoid non-urgent text messages and tweets during events because overloading of data networks was affecting television coverage. Commentators on men’s cycling road race were unable to tell viewers how far the leaders were ahead of the chasing pack because data could not get through from the GPS satellite navigation system travelling with the cyclists.

On a dare, Texas college researchers hacked into and hijacked a drone of the US Homeland Security before the eyes of the offi cials operating it. Using a technique called ‘spoofi ng’ where a signal from hackers imitates the one sent to the drone’s on-board GPS, the researchers managed to take control of a small but powerful drone in mid-air. And the hijacking was just for a $1,000 wager.

Nigeria is to switch to the satellite based navigation system also known as the Performance Based Navigation (PBN) soon. This is coming as airline operators and pilots have been urged to key into the satellite based navigation system.

More than 300 billion rubles ($10.1 billion) have been budgeted to the year 2020 for developing the Glonass satellite navigation system, Deputy Prime Minister Vladislav Surkov said recently. He said the government will make every effort to lend support to the satellite system and to develop its capabilities, including commercial ones, Interfax reported. He said Russia estimates that the navigation market in Russia was worth 12 billion rubles last year.

As part of the National Space Technology Programme, the UK Government will grant nearly GBP 6 million to co-fund major new research projects that will develop commercial products and services using space technology and data from space-based systems.