Tag Archives: National Geodetic Survey

GNSS on Bench Marks?

The GPS on Bench Marks campaign of the National Geodetic Survey is a triumph of constituency participation to improve the nation’s geodetic infrastructure. The initiative is seeing success, but also faces challenges. Multi-constellation support, and acceptance of short RTK/RTN observations, will add a productivity boost. The “GPS on Bench Marks” program of the U.S. National...

Close Enough for Government Work

Image above: High-tension measurement: Credit NOAA National Geodetic Survey. We have all heard it, most likely have even said it. I have. And we probably meant it as a negative, implying sloppy work. However, researching the origin of the saying revealed that it was born during World War II and meant excellence, as in: if...

NGS personnel check all GNSS instrumentation at the NGS instrumentation and methodologies facility in Corbin, Virginia.

NGS Finds a Real-Time Solution

An Iowa RTN contributes to the National Geodetic Survey’s Geoid Slope Validation Survey of 2014.  The gravimetric geoid model will become the zero-height surface for the new geopotential reference frame, which will replace the North American Vertical Datum (NAVD 88) in 2022.  The Geoid Slope Validation Survey of 2014 (GSVS14) is the second survey conducted...

Not Always Better With Age

Some things get better with age; some do not. Surely this is true for wine, but not sake or unrefrigerated shellfish. In the past we would view something that was made or had been established years past as holding invariant weight or authority. This was often because the effort to make or establish the item...