Daily Times

The second Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) Winter School commenced at Institute of Space Technology, Islamabad on Wednesday with maximum participation of space enthusiasts.

The winter school is being arranged by the GNSS Research Lab of National Center of GIS and Space Applications (NCGSA), Institute of Space Technology (IST).

The GNSS Winter School 2022 has been designed to equip the participants with concepts on space weather and its impacts on space-borne systems, aviation, and under extreme conditions, disruptions to radio navigation and communication systems; increased satellite drag; and geomagnetically induced currents affecting power grids, transportation, and oil/gas pipelines.

Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) include constellations of Earth orbiting satellites in Medium Earth Orbits (MEO), networks of ground control and monitoring stations, and of receivers that calculate ground positions by the basic principle of trilateration. GNSS allow users with compatible devices to determine their position, velocity and time by processing signals from satellites. GNSS signals are provided by a variety of satellite positioning systems, including global constellations (GPS, Galileo, GLONASS, BeiDou), regional systems (e.g., QZSS and IRNSS) and satellite-based augmentation systems (SBAS), such as EGNOS or WAAS. Applications of GNSS are pivotal and cost-effective in pursuing sustainable growth and socio-economic development.

GNSS has introduced an era of technological advancement and innovation in the areas of transportation (road, rail, aviation, maritime), agriculture, location-based services, mapping and surveying and timing etc. According to the GNSS market report 2019, the global GNSS downstream market revenues (devices and services) are forecasted to grow from $ 175 billion in 2019 to $ 385 billion in 2029.

IST has initiated several endeavours of GNSS Education and Popularization and GNSS Winter School is in continuance of such efforts.

National Center of GIS and Space Applications (NCGSA), a project of Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan led by IST, with its presence in 7 national universities of Pakistan encompasses endeavours that strive to achieve and sustain human, technological, research and entrepreneurial capacity in the areas of space science, technology and its applications.

GNSS and Space Education Research Lab (GSERL), a constituent component of NCGSA is entrusted to develop and enhance human capacity along with cutting-edge research in the domains of GNSS and its applications.

Quintessential to its mission, GSERL has organized the winter school especially focused on space weather and applications from October 19 – 21, 2022. The GNSS Winter School 2022 is especially crafted around the concepts of space weather phenomena, their affects, mapping, and modeling through Global Navigation Satellite Systems.

The three-day training activity will comprise of lectures, hands-on exercises and webinars from national and international subject matter experts. GNSS Winter School on Space weather also encompasses aspects of space weather starting from the inner chemistry of the Sun to the vastness of space to its interaction with Earth, its impacts on satellite-based navigation systems positioning accuracy by monitoring various layers of Earth under different geomagnetic storm conditions and multiple space weather applications including M-I-T coupling as well as LAIC Phenomenon. Special sessions will cover the effects of space weather on sensitive space and ground assets, and GNSS and Space Weather applications for natural disaster management.

The three-day workshop will include participation of qualified resource persons, from Sorbonne Universite, France, Technical University of Madrid, Spain, University Newcastle, UK, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China, Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology, Quaid-i-Azam University, Pakistan to deliver insightful lectures and talks on GNSS and its applications.

The first day of the winter school focused on the fundamentals of GNSS, including the evolution of satellite navigation, its history and an overview of regional and global navigation satellite systems. The day also encompassed a lecture on GNSS Signal in Space.

Participants of the school also benefited from an online lecture on Space Weather, delivered by Dr Christine Amory-Mazaudier from Sorbonne Universite, France.