USAF Announces selection of GPS III follow-on contract
The U.S. Air Force announced selection of Lockheed Martin for a fixed-price-type production contract for 22 GPS III Follow- On satellites with a total estimated contract value up to $7.2 billion.
The Air Force operates a total of 77 satellites vital to US national security that provide …

BSNL launches satellite phone services
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, India’s only authorised service provider for satellite phone services, launched the Global Satellite Phone Service (GSPS).
For fishermen, it is a revolutionary communication gadget that would come in handy as they practice multiday deep-sea stay fishing. Satellite-based mobile phone service provides voice call and SMS facility …

UK radar satellite NovaSAR-1 successfully launched
The radar imaging satellite NovaSAR-1, carrying an Airbus S-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) built in Portsmouth, has been launched successfully on a PSLV launcher from India. The spacecraft was built under the leadership of Surrey Satellite Technology Limited, an Airbus subsidiary.
The innovative small satellite will be used to …

Ordnance Survey underpins UK driverless car testing
Ordnance Survey (OS) is one of 11 partners in OmniCAV, a £3.9m project to develop a world-first Artificial Intelligencebased simulation model for testing autonomous car safety. The simulation environment will feature a 32km circuit of Oxfordshire roads, covering rural, urban, main roads and intersections. The simulation will be …

British government to fund study on Galileo alternative
The British government has announced on Aug. 29 that it will spend more than $100 million to study whether the country should develop its own satellite navigation system as an alternative to Europe’s Galileo.
In a statement, the government announced it would use £92 million ($119 million) …

Hexagon partners with Clevest
Hexagon’s Safety & Infrastructure division and Clevest have partnered to offer Clevest’s workforce automation products alongside Hexagon’s utility GIS and outage management systems for integrated office-to-field solutions. The partnership expands the network engineering and operations offerings for utilities and telecommunications companies and smart cities in North America. Clevest provides software that connects …

eSIM OTA test solution verification supports ERA-GLONASS
All new vehicles in the Euroasian Economic Union (EAEU) must be equipped with the ERA-GLONASS emergency calling system. Certification for these eCall systems is based on the Russian GOST R System specifications, where GOST 33470 covers the test methods for wireless communication modules of in-vehicle emergency call devices …

Siemens and Bentley Partnership
Siemens PLM Software has announced with Bentley Systems, an integrated solution for enterprises to deliver capital projects more efficiently, combining the Teamcenter® portfolio with Bentley’s ProjectWise and its Connected Data Environment (CDE). Teamcenter is the world’s most widely used product lifecycle management (PLM) system, and ProjectWise is the project delivery collaboration …

India allows flying commercial drones day-time from Dec 1
India has finally permitted commercial flying of drones with effect from December 1, 2018, according to a press release from the Ministry of Civil Aviation on August 27.
The ministry announced Drone Regulations 1.0 on August 27 to enable safe, commercial usage of drones. The regulation …

Ocean’ satellite Sentinel-6A beginning to take shape
The integration of Sentinel-6A, the first of two satellites to continue measuring sea levels from 2020, has reached a new milestone and its critical phase: the propulsion module has been “mated” with the main structure of the satellite at Airbus.
In a complex operation, the Airbus satellite specialists …