January/February 2012

» Subscribe to the print edition for free.
    Allow 6 to 8 weeks for your subscription to be processed.

Dressing up in a superhero costume and flinging oneself out of an airplane might sound like a good idea to a 20-something skydiver. But is it science? More importantly, can a GNSS-outfit­ted wingsuit be turned into a free-falling human testbed that helps design better products and applications? Andrew Levson and colleagues at NovAtel plan to find out.

Europe’s GNSS program — Galileo — launched two in-orbit validation satellites in October, the first elements of the system’s fully operational constellation. In this article, a team of Italian researchers present the initial results of their analysis of the Galileo signals.

How can pseudorange measurements be generated from code tracking?

What began, in the words of the Defense Department, as a “force enhancer” has become an economy enhancer of enormous value.

Two or more modernized GNSS signals transmitted on the same carrier produce varying amplitudes that reduce the power amplifier efficiency and result in the need for aligning the group signal amplitude. Here, two Russian signals experts introduce a new symmetrized signals class that enables significant reductions in the loss factor created during this amplitude alignment. The authors also propose optimal com¬binations of three and four signals when exploiting multiple GNSS systems and offer an improved design for GLONASS L3 and L5 signals.

Military managers, fidgeting like new-year dieters at a Weight Watchers meeting, anxiously wait to see what they'll have to live without now that years of war-fueled budget indulgence are over. How will GPS fare as Congress reviews the president's budget?

In This Issue: The leap second, icy Alaska harbors and icy European streets, a wealth of Russian satellites and a Chinese vacation paradise

Roscosmos announces a 20.55 billion ruble federal target program budget for the coming year.