Posted on: May 21, 2012

As part of the SBAS Awareness and Training for South Africa (SATSA) FP7 project, undertaken by SANSA SO, GMV, NDconsult and AplhaConsult, the first training session devoted to GNSS and SBAS basics took place at the SANSA Space Operations Minitrack training facility in Hartebeeshoek from May 7^th to 10^th 2012. The training was given by Dr. Alberto Madrazo Fernández and Dr. José Caro Ramon from GMV and involved delegates from SANSA SO, ATNS, South African CAA and the Tracker and Peace Parks Foundation. After this first successful training, SANSA and the delegates look forward to the next training session on the engineering aspects of SBAS for SAR which will take place in July 2012.

Dr. José Caro Ramon explaining some of the finest points of GNSS to the delegates	Dr. Alberto Madrazo Fernández helps delegates performing practical exercises on SBAS simulations

Posted on: March 21, 2012

The contract notice for support to the air transport sector and satellite service applications; introduction of GNSS/EGNOS, capacity building for satellite navigation services in Africa has been published today. Click here for the contract notice and here for additional  informations.

Posted on: March 19, 2012

Two Contract forecast notices have been published on the Official Journal of the European Union. These contracts which addess ACP countries focus on:

• support to the air transport sector and satellite service applications; introduction of GNSS/EGNOS, capacity building for satellite navigation services in Africa. Click here for more details,
• support to the air transport sector and satellite service applications — improvement of aviation security in Africa. Click here for more details.

Posted on: March 09, 2012

At the end of February, the SATSA [SBAS (Satellite based Augmentation system) Awareness and Training for South Africa] kick-off meeting was held at the South African National Space Agency (SANSA) in Pretoria, South Africa. SATSA is a FP7 project from the EC to build capacity in satellite navigation in anticipation of the deployment of EGNOS (European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service ) in South Africa in the foreseeable future. This project is lead by the Spanish company GMV, with partners from Italy (Alpha Consult), the UK (NDConsult) and South Africa (SANSA). The project will offer four training sessions on basic to advanced SBAS concepts, and will also feature three training trials to evaluate SBAS applications using a test platform to produce realistic SBAS signals for the duration of the trials. The project is scheduled to run for a period of 18 months beginning with the first of four training sessions between March and November 2012 and the trials between February and April 2013. The trials will focus on vehicle logistics, agriculture and GIS ground truthing. ATNS and CAA also joined the initial meeting to discuss the training needs for the aviation community which will form part of the 3rd training session which is dedicated to the use of EGNOS in the aviation domain.

Left to right: Eugene Avenant (SANSA Space ops), Farhad Hassim (SANSA Space Ops), Boy Sindane CAA (Civil Aviation Authority), Rodney Subramany ATNS (Air Traffic Navigation Services), Leago Takalani (ATNS), Nina Costa, NDConsult (UK), Emiliano Spaltro, Alpha Consult (Italy) and Alberto Madrazo Fernandez, GMV (Spain)