Study on Galileo services consolidation
The European GNSS Supervisory Authority has issued a call for tenders for a study on Galileo service consolidation. The general aim of the project is to conduct a critical review of the current Galileo integrity baseline concept, based on the evolution of integrity requirements for Galileo, and receive proposals for new global Galileo integrity concepts. For details visit: http://ted.europa. eu/udl?uri=TED:NOTICE:039425- 2008:TEXT:EN:HTML

Iran’s space ambitions ride on Safir
Iran has successfully recently launched a sub-orbital rocket called Safir (Envoy). The payload that was launched by Safir sent real-time data back to earth from about 250 km. Next, a satellite called Omid (Hope) will be placed in a near-polar orbit satellite, at an altitude of 650 km and will pass over Iran six times every 24 hours.

Jharkhand state in India goes online at the grassroots level
Common service centres would be set up at each of the 4,562 panchayats in the state by soon where villagers can avail services like registration of certificates, filing commercial taxes among others. According to R. S. Sharma, Secretary of IT, 3000 of such centres has already been set up. Use of GIS for digital mapping of districts shall also be done to locate the villages and also to calculate
the amount of rainfall an area receives in a year to facilitate irrigation. Water harvesting mapping using GIS shall also be emphasised. www.telegraphindia.com/

India orders over one hundred SIGMA 95 navigation systems
Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) of India has just ordered from Sagem Défense Sécurité (SAFRAN Group) more than 100 SIGMA 95N navigation systems. These systems will be used on the Indian Air Force Sukhoi fighters and the Tejas fighters from the Indian LCA (Light Combat Aircraft) program. SIGMA 95N is a standalone inertial laser gyro navigation system with integrated GPS/Glonass. It brings highprecision navigation and a high degree of operating flexibility to combat aircraft.

2.2 million cars in Europe have a telematics device
According to Berg Insight, 2.2 million passenger cars in Europe had an on-board telematics device at the end of 2007. It forecasts that the major breakthrough for telematics in Europe will come with the introduction of the eCall system proposed by the EC, which holds a high probability of becoming a reality in the early 2010s. berginsight.com

Topcon and Sokkia merge
The merger between Topcon Corporation and Sokkia Co, Ltd, both with corporate headquarters in Japan, was confirmed on 5 February. Both companies are the two largest Japanese manufacturers of survey equipment. Sokkia will become a wholly owned subsidiary of
Topcon Corporation.

Norwegian Prime Minister opens new Antarctic satellite station
“The Norwegian satellite station TrollSat is a milestone in satellite surveillance of the environment”, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said. It offers better and quicker access to vital climate, environment and weather data. The data will be used in research and in other environment surveillance. He also laid the foundation stone for the Galileo station next to TrollSat. The station will be ready in 2009. The Galileo station in the Antarctic will be part of the European navigation system Galileo, which will be operational in 2013 and be based on space satellites. www.norwaypost.no

Indo-Norwegian pact on developing TOPAZ
WAn Indo-Norwegian agreement was signed to collaborate in developing an operational ocean modelling and data assimilation system for the Indian Ocean—the TOPAZ Indian Ocean forecasting system. The parties from Norway are the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Centre (NERSC) and the University of Bergen (UoB), while the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) and Nansen Environmental Research Centre-India (NERCI) Kochi are from India. According to a press release issued here, the TOPAZ Indian Ocean system has been implemented, assessed and used by a group of scientists of Bergen and Kochi. www.hindu.com

Chinese vice-premier urges scientific outlook
Chinese Vice-Premier Zeng Peiyan has urged authorities responsible for statistics, surveying and mapping, food and tobacco to implement the government’s scientific outlook on development and innovate to improve accuracy and authority. Related authorities should improve their surveying and mapping work to provide a quality service for the country’s construction, he said. http://news.xinhuanet.com

Topcon GNSS first to add China’s Compass signal
Topcon Positioning Systems (TPS) is the first to announce to have successfully tracked signals from the Chinese Compass satellite constellation. It also developed the world’s first GNSS technology to pick up signals from GPS, GLONASS, the planned Galileo satellite system.