The European Space Agency launched its star-surveying satellite Gaia into space, hoping to produce the most accurate 3-D map of the Milky Way and to better understand the evolution of our galaxy.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) released on November 7, 2013 its first annual Roadmap outlining efforts needed to safely integrate unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) into the nation’s airspace. The Roadmap addresses current and future policies

Bhuvan (www.bhuvan.nrsc.gov.in), a unique geoportal of NRSC that provide diversified geospatial services, is gaining popularity day by day and is much appreciated for its dynamic services. Initiated in 2009, Bhuvan has grown up rapidly and has made its impact on Indian user community. Expanding it’s state-ofart facilities and a datacentre at Hyderabad, Bhuvan is now extending geographically with its distributed architecture.

The Eighth Meeting of the International Committee on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (ICG) was held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE) from 10 to 14 November 2013 to continue reviewing and discussing developments in global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) and to allow ICG members, associate members, and observers to address recent developments in their organizations and associations with regard to GNSS services and applications.

Chronos has announced a range of GPS interference and jamming detection and monitoring products and services for critical infrastructure, law enforcement and services dependent on GPS and (in the future) Galileo signals for mission critical operations. Capabilities include hand-held monitoring and detection as well as 24×7 remote sensor monitoring with centralised web based viewing of events and email alerts. ww.chronos.co.uk

INSPIRE stands for Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe. It is a European framework legislation that aims to create a European Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) that is built on the top on National SDI developed and operated by the European Member States…

Raytheon UK has taken its first order for a pre-production MiniGAS, the latest in GPS Anti-Jam technology. This contract, awarded by an undisclosed customer, requires Raytheon UK to produce demonstrator units for customer evaluation. MiniGAS aims to be the lightest and smallest GPS Anti-Jamming system produced by Raytheon UK…

The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) is developing e-Navigation as the future approach to marine navigation in order to enhance maritime safety. As such, the IMO state that positioning systems for e-Navigation “should be resilient …. robust, reliable and dependable. Requirements for redundancy, particularly in relation to position fixing systems should be considered”

Norway’s government is refusing to let Apple take aerial photography of the capital city Oslo to create 3D images for its Maps app, BBC News reported. There are security concerns about access to detailed views of government buildings. Anyone wishing to fly over Oslo to take pictures requires a license from the authorities, which has been declined according to official documents. However satellite imagery, as used by other map brands, is not protected. www.panarmenian.net

The National Geographic Institute (IGN), the mapping agency of Peru, has launched a project for digitisation of national cartography. The idea of the project is to have a high precision data in order to contribute to the growth of public and private investments that can benefi t from this updated mapping information.