Slashgeo

Very Spatial links to an interesting Defense Tech article regarding China's potential answer to USA's GPS, Europe Galileo and Russia's Glonass navigation satellites named Compass. From the article: "China invested in the European Galileo system through the Galileo Joint Undertaking. [...] It’s no surprise, then, that China would feel betrayed by its partnership in the Joint Undertaking. Compass may be a result of China’s desire to strike out on its own– or a bluff aimed at wrangling a more substantive role in Galileo. [...] Another consideration: there is a possibility that Compass could jam GPS and Galileo. Even as a regional system, Compass could have significant military implications"

All Points Blog links to a The Hindu article informing us India and Russia will jointly develop the GLONASS-K GPS satellites. From the short article: ""Under the space co-operation agreements signed during President Vladimir Putin's India visit, both countries will jointly develop new generation GLONASS-K satellite for the GLONASS global positioning system, which will function parallelly with the American GPS," Indian Ambassador Kanwal Sibal said. Addressing an internet press conference last evening, he said Russia intends to operationalise GLONASS by 2010 by completing the cluster of 24 satellites."

GeoCarta discuss and links to articles related to Vladimir Putin hoping GLONASS will have a bright future. From this article: " “In order users chose GLONASS, the system should operate flawlessly, better than GPS (the global positioning system). Cheaper and with a better quality,” he said at a meeting with government members on Monday. “I hope that the government will pay much attention to the creation of the GLONASS system,” the president said. He added that he watched the progress of the project. “We have the right to count on known, healthy economic patriotism of our users, first of all of the state, but I proceed from the assumption that we shall work on market terms in this sector of the economy, and users will be able to chose a quality service,” Putin stressed." See numerous related stories below, including the collaboration between India and Russia.

Here's a few recent news regarding GALILEO and GLONASS GPS systems. I copied in related stories below many items of interest regarding the two programs. Recent geoblogs entries include Vector One discussing GALILEO: "Today Christopher Booker of the Telegraph newspaper in the UK sums up the project in his column, “The costs of Galileo have already taken off so wildly (and it is already six years behind schedule), that we may well hand over much more than £1.7 billion to pay for our 17 per cent share in this white elephant (somehow two thirds of the EU’s members have managed to get out of paying anything at all).”" Google's Ed Parsons chimes in. Meanwhile, GLONASS seems in much better shape, as indicated by this other V1 entry and the news of the successful new GLONASS satellite launch.

A few geoblogs discussed the European GALILEO project and the news are more or less good. Amongst the entries, you have GeoCarta underlines the 2.4 billion euros of fresh money sent to GALILEO required to continue development, from The Register: "States voted to back a €2.4bn funding deal, drawing cash from unused farming subsidies, and restructuring research and industrial spending for the year. This means the European rival to the US military's GPS system can go ahead, but no extra public funds will be written into the EU's budget to pay for it." V1 also discuss this impressive amount of leftovers and provides other links, V1 also make a relation to the U.S. updated GPS III satellites: "The US military is working on super-powerful updates to its GPS satellite navigation technology to try to trump the rival European Galileo project which just received key funding, experts say." Not as much tightly related, APB links to survey indicating Garmin is the #1 maker of portable navigation systems, consumers say. Update: 11/30 20:12 GMT by S : Let's not forget GLONASS, here's a recent article where we learn: "Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, wants to spend at least $60 billion over the next 10 years to make Russia a global high-tech titan [...]"

From the All Points Blog summary : "The "Daichi" satellite went up about two years ago. Japan launched it to collect data to create maps of remote parts of the country. Today, the Geographical Survey Institute said that the images were blurry and could not be used for the detailed mapping planned. But the images won't go to waste - they'll be used as background data for land use determination and the like."

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