Surveying, Mapping and GIS

A buzz is going around in the surveying community, JAVAD is back.

Dr. Javad Ashjaee, after a lengthy non-compete hiatus, has returned to the market with Javad GNSS, Inc. - Arguably a highly recognizable figure and driving force behind the GPS success of Trimble Navigation, his former ventures Ashtech and Javad Positioning Systems, which he sold to Topcon in 2000 - he now returns with a number of interesting offerings: The Triumph chip, a 216-channel receiver, said to be able to receive "all existing satellite signals as well as all those planned for the future. This includes all GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, QZSS, WAAS, EGNOS, and Compass/Beidou signals"

In echoes of Christmas Past, ITAR-TASS and others are announcing the launch of three new GLONASS space vehicles. They were launched from Baikonur atop a Proton-M at 22:32 Moscow time on Tuesday.

Refer to the GLONASS site for current SV status: http://www.glonass-ianc.rsa.ru/pls/htmldb/f?p=202:20:16827457493506720876::NO:::

At present, it does not yet show the three new SVs active. Of a total 24 slots, 18 are presently occupied, with two temporarily switched off, and 3 undergoing decommissioning.

This brings GLONASS close, but still short of its current goal of 18 SVs. Six more GLONASS satellites are scheduled for launch in 2008, and the first two improved GLONASS-K satellites are scheduled for launch the following year, hopefully rounding out the full complement of 24.

On a related note, former spymaster Vladimir Putin has stated an intent to use GLONASS to spy on his dog, Connie.

I was able to enjoy some time at the Pennsylvania Society of Land Surveyors' 2007 Conference. It was great to see many old friends again, such as the great folks at PSLS that put the conference on, the Penn State Wilkes-Barre Surveying faculty (they have an excellent program there - I was fortunate to be able to tag along as an observer in the last ABET visit to Penn State, and have known Tom Seybert since my own days at Penn State as a student), as well as many fellow surveyors, PAMAGIC members, POBers and other folks - the conversation was great, I got a lot of input and thoughts on Continuing Professional Competency, data standards and geodesy, and many other things swirling around in my life of late.

My focus was to attend some of the GPS sessions, and though I was tied up with many other things, I was actually able to attend some, such as the "Horizontal Control Survey with GPS " session by GPS guru Dr. James P. Reilly, and the "Static GPS Post-Processing" session by Brian Naberezny, of PSU and University of Maine.

I also greatly enjoyed the excellent presentation put on by Patrick Lee, as a Daniel Boone re-enactor. As a pioneer in his westward movements, Daniel Boone was involved in surveying and land grants - and some of my own Searcy ancestors were colleagues of Boone, and were also surveyors in early Kentucky.