Positioning Navigation and Timing

By Yuka Koshino Japan’s establishment of the Space Domain Mission Unit, which is planned to become fully operational in 2023, reflects the country’s increasing reliance on space systems to meet its security needs. It could emerge as a key actor in the defence of space assets in the Indo-Pacific. In …

The Japanese Self-Defense Forces (SDF) and Ministry of Defense (MoD) stood up the country’s first Space Operations Squadron – the first component of Japan’s Space Domain Mission Unit (SDMU) – in a ceremony presided by the Japanese Minister of Defense Taro Kono on 18 May 2020. The Space Operations Squadron, …

The European Space Agency (ESA) has awarded two contracts to Thales Alenia Space, the joint company between Thales (67%) and Leonardo (33%), concerning EGNOS (European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service). These contracts, fully financed under the European Commission H2020 programme concern study phases on the system evolution. They will call on …

Xona Space Systems, a California-based startup creating a secure and precise Position, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) satellite service, announced on 14 May 2020 that it has raised a US$1M pre-seed round led by 1517, with participation from Seraphim Capital, Trucks Venture Capital, and Stellar Solutions. In the U.S. alone, over $300 billion of …

Senior British civil servants are reportedly urging government ministers to abandon plans to build the UK’s own global navigation satellite system (GNSS), arguing that the proposed £5 billion project is “unaffordable” amid the economic devastation being wrought by the Coronavirus pandemic. According to an 8 May 2020 report in the …

The Global Positioning System, better known as GPS, marked its 25th year of operation on 27 April 2020. On 27 April 1995, the system reached full operational capability, meaning the system met all performance requirements.  U.S. Air Force Space Command formally announced the milestone three months later. “This is a …

On the 50th anniversary of China’s first satellite launch, Geely Technology Group subsidiary, Geespace announced on 24 April 2020 that its first two satellites will undergo final validation testing in June before being shipped to Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center for launch into low-orbit. Along with the launch of its first …

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has unveiled the existence of its own Space Command following the successful launch of the Noor-1 Earth observation satellite on 22 April 2020 (reported by SpaceWatch.Global here). After the launch of Noor-1 IRGC commanders appeared in Iranian media extolling their achievements and speaking about …

By Frank A. Rose At the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) December 2019 Leader’s Summit in London, leaders acknowledged that technology is rapidly changing the international security environment, stating: “To stay secure, we must look to the future together. We are addressing the breadth and scale of new technologies to …

By Roger McDermott This essay was originally published by the Eurasia Daily Monitor of  The Jamestown Foundation on 8 April 2020, and is republished here with their kind permission. The original essay can be found here. In December 2019, President Donald Trump formally created the United States Space Force, a …