On November 30, the GLONASS-K1 satellite, GLONASS 701(K), which had been using broadcast almanac slot 3 and transmitting on frequency channel -5 while undergoing flight tests, ceased transmissions on its assigned channel and was removed from the almanac.GLONASS 744, launched with the other Block 44 satellites on 4 November 2011 and which achieved its orbital slot 3 in Plane 1 a few days ago, was activated and is transmitting on frequency channel 5. It is currently set unhealthy in both the almanac and the ephemeris while undergoing further commissioning.GLONASS 743 and 745 are still moving towards their designated orbit slots.

Juniper Systems has partnered with Topcon Positioning Systems (TPS) and will manufacture the Topcon Tesla™, the newest data collector in Topcon’s full lineup of rugged handheld computers and solutions for the survey industry. The Tesla features the advantages of both a rugged handheld and a tablet PC, without the disadvantages of either.

Europe has taken a major step in its history by launching the first two operational Galileo satellites with a Soyuz launcher to reach their orbit at 23.000 kilometres. From 2014, the new constellation will enable improved services ranging from more precise in-car navigation, effective road transport management, search and rescue services, more secure banking transactions as well as reliable electricity provision, which all rely heavily on satellite navigation technologies to work efficiently. The overall economic impact is estimated to be around 90 billion euro over the next 20 years.

Russia’s GLONASS has been upgraded to a precision of up to 5 metres after the successful launch of the 24th GLONASS satellite on 3rd October 2011. The launch marked a turning point bringing the number of GLONASS satellites to a complete set, as planned by the designers. Previous versions of GLONASS had an accuracy within 50 metres.

Land & Property Services (LPS) has announced its plan to deliver a programme of improved mapping for Northern Ireland. The Positional Improvement Project, which examines the accuracy of features of LPS Ordnance Survey Northern Ireland (OSNI) maps, will deliver significant improvements to the quality of current mapping, enabling its customers to provide more efficient and accurate service delivery.

Robotic car technology being developed at Oxford University that interprets its surroundings and makes decisions about where to go could eliminate the agony and cost of traffic jams. Whilst human drivers might use GPS to find their way such systems cannot provide anything like the coverage, precision, and reliability autonomous cars need to safely navigate. GPS also fails to tell a robotic car anything about what surrounds it; its proximity to obstacles, other cars, pedestrians, or their intentions.

A spy satellite for the Japanese government rode an H-2A rocket into orbit replenishing a fleet of secret spacecraft designed to keep track of missile development in North Korea. The secret satellite, built by Mitsubishi Electric Corp., is circling Earth in a sun-synchronous orbit with an altitude of more than 300 miles. The spacecraft was a more than $500 million payload outfitted with an optical camera and telescope to supply imagery to the Japanese government for intelligence, defense and civilian remote sensing applications. The spacecraft will become an operational member of Japan’s optical spy satellite fleet.

Carlson Survey 2012: Carlson Survey 2012 gives users increased 3D visualization, extensive new 3D coding in its industry-renowned Fieldto- Finish, and the ability to produce customized, more professional reports among its many additional improvements. It provides support in its 2012 release for AutoCAD 2012 and comes with IntelliCAD 7.1 built-in.

yandex buys 10 mn sq.km of images: Yandex, a Russian search engine, purchased high resolution images of 10 million sq.km of the Earth territory from ScanEx. The resolution shall be 0.8m per pixel.

SciSys wins satellite project contract: SciSys, the specialist supplier of bespoke software systems, IT based solutions and support services, has been awarded a contract to support the Full Operational Capability (FOC) Phase of Europe’s Galileo System. This was achieved after successful completion of the European Union (EU) competitive dialogue process and final negotiations with Astrium UK as the prime contractor for the Galileo Ground Control Segment. The SciSys baseline contract is worth around €2m and will run until the end of 2013, with an optional maintenance extension into 2014.