David Mitlyng for Xairos

The Last 500 Feet
Recently NASA hosted a Position, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) Workshop dedicated to the "last 500 feet."
While GPS and other satellite navigation systems work well on the open road, their signals are blocked in the urban canyons of large cities.
And this is where accurate positioning is needed for self-driving cars, flying taxis, and delivery drones.
One solution: move the PNT signals closer to the ground.
Terrestrial beacons can deliver high-power RF signals and be optimally concentrated near traffic lanes.
But these beacons require very accurate time synchronization.


Video courtesy: NASA Data & Reasoning Fabric (DRF)


Video courtesy: Futurama, The Curiosity Company and 20th Television Animation

Last Week's Theme: ...Looking Forward

• Received notice that our "Quantum Secure Network Clock Synchronization" US patent will be granted in February, and the Europe, Japan, and Korea patents were filed.
• Working on new proposals and partnerships to expand the team, build a testbed, and design our first satellite.
• Preparing for upcoming Board and Advisory Meetings, and next Investor Briefing in February.

• A flurry of new US government reports were recently released:
  • A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) report on the 33 hour GPS outage at Denver International Airport was finally released, but didn’t explain what caused the outage.
  • A US Government Accountability Office (GAO) report documents the US government's “head in the sand” approach to assessing GPS jamming.
  • A National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) report outlines US government quantum plans and funding.
• In response to Russia’s satellite hacking the Aerospace Corporation developed the Space Attack Research and Tactic Analysis (SPARTA) framework “to describe the unique threats hackers may pose to systems in space.”
• NASA also admits that there is a new space race underway.
• Canada announced a National Quantum Strategy including plans for the QEYSSat quantum satellite.
• Two new venture funding reports are out: the CB Insights “State of Venture” report (estimates $415.1B in venture funding in 2022) and the Pitchbook “2023 US Venture Capital Outlook” report (estimates $238.3B in venture funding in 2022).

• Photonics West and Quantum West, January 28 - February 2, San Francisco, CA
• Workshop on Synchronization and Timing Systems, March 13 - 16, Vancouver, Canada
• Satellite 2023, March 13 - 16, Washington DC
• Space Symposium, April 17 - 20, Colorado Springs, CO

The World Economic Forum (WEF) believes that "quantum technology will exponentially accelerate the Fourth Industrial Revolution."
There are concerns of a quantum divide between the 17 countries that are investing in quantum research and the 150 that are not.
But the divide is even more stark when you consider that only one country, China, is responsible for half of the global funding in quantum technology.
The US has since made quantum and science funding a priority, and inspired the US State Department to set up an Office of the Special Envoy for Critical and Emerging Technology “to lead development of innovative technologies like artificial intelligence and quantum information.”
And it has also encouraged research cooperation between the US and other western countries.

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