Sperry Marine business, a unit of Northrop Grumman Corporation (NOC), will supply advanced shipboard navigation systems for 20 fast patrol vessels under a contract with Indian reseller Marine Electricals Ltd. The systems will be supplied to Indian Coast Guard.

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has launched its fi rst copy of the UAE’s electronic statistical atlas. It comes within the framework of the strategic initiatives of the NBS to meet requirements of data users. The atlas is the latest sophisticated data device linked to the GIS technologies and their applications. http://gulfnews.com

Europe’s third Galileo satellite has transmitted its first test navigation signals back to earth. The two Galileo satellites launched last October have reached their final orbital position and are in the midst of testing.

A Chinese Long March rocket successfully launched a Turkish remote sensing satellite last month. The 450-kilogram satellite, built by Turkey’s Space Technologies Research Institute and Turkish Aerospace Industries, Inc., with a camera system provided by South Korea, is designed to provide imagery of the Earth at resolutions as high as 2.5 meters. http://www.spacetoday.net/

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.

Nokia has acquired 3D-mapping company Earthmine. Moving quickly, the struggling mobile firm has launched a new free location cloud service called Here, available at the URL Here. net.

At the site of the future main Galileo Security Monitoring Center (GSMC) in Saint Germain en Laye outside Paris, a ground-breaking ceremony was organised by the French Space Agency (CNES), with a large contingent of French civilian and military authorities and EU officials in attendance.

Designed for a wide range of survey applications, the SIRIUS UAV is a fixed wing structure ideal for corridor mapping roads, pipelines and power lines, calculating stockpile volumes, monitoring erosion, reconciliation and progress reporting.

Prior to using the Nikon Nivo total station, leveling was accomplished with a theodolite and precision leveling rod. The theodolite system was very easy to use, but distances could not be measured, and it required manually calculating the height differences and calculation errors and manually entering the values into a computer.

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.