Portland, OR — On the 12th and 13th of September, the 56th meeting of the U.S. government’s Civil GPS Service Interface Committee (CGSIC) will be hosted by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) and the U.S. Coast Guard Navigation Center (NAVCEN) at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland, Oregon. DOT serves as the civil lead for the Global Positioning System (GPS) and chairs the CGSIC in this capacity. NAVCEN is assigned duties as Deputy Chair and Executive Secretariat for the CGSIC.
On Monday, September 12th, the Subcommittees of the CGSIC for Timing, State and Local Government, International Information, and Survey, Mapping, and Geosciences will hold their meetings. A summary of these subcommittee meetings will be presented to the CGSIC Plenary Session on Tuesday, September 13th.
The Keynote speaker for this year’s CGSIC Plenary session will be Brigadier General Mark Baird, Vice Commander, Space and Missile Systems Center, Los Angeles Air Force Base. The agenda for the CGSIC Subcommittee and Plenary sessions will include presentations on the operational status and modernization of the GPS constellation of satellites, U.S. space-based Position, Navigation and Timing (PNT) policy, GPS augmentation systems, and information related to U.S. engagement with other international Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), as well as a variety of interesting applications of the use of GPS.
Several new briefings are part of the Plenary session this year, including a presentation from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) on the agency’s support of the civil GPS program. Also, the Department of Homeland Security will provide an update on the activities of the Office of Infrastructure Protection PNT Program Management Office.
The agenda for the meeting is available at http://www.gps.gov/cgsic/meetings/2016. All CGSIC presentations will be available there for viewing online shortly after the meeting conclusion. As a reminder, all CGSIC meetings are free and open to the public so please plan to join for an interesting couple of days of briefings on the U.S. civil GPS program.