Inmarsat Opens The Door T Civil Use Of GPS

Inmarsat has initiated the pn cess of allocating the navigatio transponders on its Inmarsat-3 sa ellites for use by service provider! and either national or regional civ aviation or other transportation ai thorities.

Inmarsat's signatories will mak the transponders available to sei vice providers in their countries fo applications to use one or more c the navigation transponders for pe riods of three, five or 10 years. With one navigation channel oi each of the five satellites, Inmarsat': third generation of satellites wil offer an enhanced global navigatioi capability for international civil us ers of the nationally-owned and op erated U.S. global positioning sys tern (GPS) and Russian Global Navi gation Satellite System (GLONASS! satellite navigation systems.

Inmarsat-3 will be capable of both providing navigation signals and relaying independently-monitored integrity information on navigation signals generated by GPS and GLONASS.

Integrity information is required by civil users of these systems to permit their use in safety-critical applications.

Oceangoing vessels could use the enhanced navigation capabilities, combined with Inmarsat's global d a t a communications service (Inmarsat-C) for search and rescue operations, tracking of hazardous cargo and fleet management.

For more information on Inmarsat Circle 2 3 on Reader Service Card