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.

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.

Experiences from world bank development support for land reform: Keith Clifford Bell;
Analyses of Internetbased GPS processing services: Harun Kenan Subasi, Reha Metin Alkan;

Archaeology reflects the amazing diversity of human life across the globe (Neto, 2000). Archaeological investigations are considered as a principal source of knowledge of prehistoric, ancient, and extinct cultures. In order to reconstruct history, archaeologists rely on all the unearthed evidence, such as man-made objects, which can be as small as tools and ornaments or as large as architectural residues (Xia, 2006). Thus, it is important to explore archaeological contrivance and record them in a systematic way.

The Planning Commission and Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India conducted a workshop on National GIS on September 14, 2011 in New Delhi to discuss the National GIS vision document version 2 with all concerned involved and to formalize a national-level endorsement.

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.

Bulletproof vest has GPS, sends alert: The S-911 Vest from Laipac Technology is chest armor with brains. It has sprouted a GPS system. It’s designed for military, police, law enforcement agencies etc. It is the invisible eye for the Commander during tactical missions. It provides automatic GPS tracking with accurate position, time, date, speed & heading.
www.laipac.com

Indonesia develops NSDI using cloud: Indonesia’s National Coordinating Agency for Survey and Mapping, BAKOSURTANAL, is developing its National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI) using cloud computing technology. This initiative aims to provide accurate and reliable geospatial information to government agencies and the general public.
www.futuregov.in

Space Wing installs large software sustainment release

The 50th Space Wing’s 2nd Space Operations Squadron installed a major software release containing 104 fixes to the GPS Ground Segment. This is the largest sustainment release to the GPS ground segment since transitioning to the Architecture Evolution Plan system in 2007. Since 2007, the GPS Directorate has been concentrating on delivering new capability software to the ground segment for the IIF satellite, increasing navigation signal strength and anti-spoof capability.