Federal Register. Takes of Marine Mammals Incidental to Specified Activities Taking Marine Mammals Incidental to Geophysical Surveys in the Atlantic Ocean. Start Preamble. Start Printed Page 2. Air Gun Modeling Software Seismic Waves' title='Air Gun Modeling Software Seismic Waves' />AGENCY National Marine Fisheries Service NMFS, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration NOAA, Commerce. ACTION Notice five proposed incidental harassment authorizations request for comments. SUMMARY NMFS has received five requests for authorization to take marine mammals incidental to conducting geophysical survey activity in the Atlantic Ocean. Pursuant to the Marine Mammal Protection Act MMPA, NMFS is requesting comments on its proposal to issue incidental harassment authorizations IHA to incidentally take marine mammals during the specified activities. DATES Comments and information must be received no later than July 6, 2. ADDRESSES Comments should be addressed to Jolie Harrison, Chief, Permits and Conservation Division, Office of Protected Resources, National Marine Fisheries Service. Physical comments should be sent to 1. Air Gun Modeling Software Seismic Waves' title='Air Gun Modeling Software Seismic Waves' />The Global Positioning System GPS, originally Navstar GPS, is a spacebased radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United. NMFS has received five requests for authorization to take marine mammals incidental to conducting geophysical survey activity in the Atlantic Ocean. Pursuant to the. Reflection seismology or seismic reflection is a method of exploration geophysics that uses the principles of seismology to estimate the properties of the Earths. East West Highway, Silver Spring, MD 2. ITP. Lawsnoaa. gov. Instructions NMFS is not responsible for comments sent by any other method, to any other address or individual, or received after the end of the comment period. Comments received electronically, including all attachments, must not exceed a 2. Attachments to electronic comments will be accepted in Microsoft Word or Excel or Adobe PDF file formats only. All comments received are a part of the public record and will generally be posted online at www. All personal identifying information e. Do not submit confidential business information or otherwise sensitive or protected information. Information Solicited NMFS is seeking public input on these requests for authorization as outlined below and request that interested persons submit information, suggestions, and comments concerning the applications. We will only consider comments that are relevant to marine mammal species that occur in U. S. waters of the Mid and South Atlantic and the potential effects of geophysical survey activities on those species and their habitat. Comments indicating general support for or opposition to hydrocarbon exploration or any comments relating to hydrocarbon development e. Comments should indicate whether they are general to the proposed authorizations described herein or are specific to one or more of the five proposed authorizations, and should be supported by data or literature citations as appropriate. Start Further Info. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT Ben Laws, Office of Protected Resources, NMFS, 3. End Further Info. End Preamble. Start Supplemental Information. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION Availability. Electronic copies of the applications and supporting documents, as well as a list of the references cited in this document, may be obtained online at www. In case of problems accessing these documents, please call the contact listed above. National Environmental Policy Act. In 2. 01. 4, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management BOEM produced a Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement PEIS to evaluate potential significant environmental effects of geological and geophysical G G activities on the Mid and South Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf OCS, pursuant to requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act NEPA. These activities include geophysical surveys in support of hydrocarbon exploration, as are proposed in the MMPA applications before NMFS. The PEIS is available online at www. Atlantic G G PEIS. NMFS participated in development of the PEIS as a cooperating agency and believes it appropriate to adopt the analysis in order to assess the impacts to the human environment of issuance of the subject IHAs. Information in the IHA applications, BOEMs PEIS, and this notice collectively provide the environmental information related to proposed issuance of these IHAs for public review and comment. We will review all comments submitted in response to this notice as we complete the NEPA process, including a final decision of whether to adopt BOEMs PEIS and sign a Record of Decision related to issuance of IHAs, prior to a final decision on the incidental take authorization requests. Background. Sections 1. A and D of the MMPA 1. U. S. C. 1. 36. 1et seq. Secretary of Commerce to allow, upon request, the incidental, but not intentional, taking of small numbers of marine mammals by U. S. citizens who engage in a specified activity other than commercial fishing within a specified geographical region if certain findings are made and either regulations are issued or, if the taking is limited to harassment, a notice of a proposed authorization is provided to the public for review. An authorization for incidental takings shall be granted if NMFS finds that the taking will have a negligible impact on the species or stocks, will not have an unmitigable adverse impact on the availability of the species or stocks for subsistence uses where relevant, and if the permissible methods of taking and requirements pertaining to the mitigation, monitoring and reporting of such takings are set forth. NMFS has defined negligible impact in 5. CFR 2. 16. 1. 03 as an impact resulting from the specified activity that cannot be reasonably expected to, and is not reasonably likely to, adversely affect the species or stock through effects on annual rates of recruitment or survival. Except with respect to certain activities not pertinent here, the MMPA defines harassment as Any act of pursuit, torment, or annoyance which i has the potential to injure a marine mammal or marine mammal stock in the wild Level A harassment or ii has the potential to disturb a marine mammal or marine mammal stock in the wild by causing disruption of behavioral patterns, including, but not limited to, migration, breathing, nursing, breeding, feeding, or sheltering Level B harassment. Summary of Requests. In 2. 01. 4 1. 5, we received five separate requests for authorization for take of marine mammals incidental to geophysical surveys in support of hydrocarbon exploration in the Atlantic Ocean. The applicants are companies that provide services, such as geophysical data acquisition, to the oil and gas industry. Upon review of these requests, we submitted questions, comments, and requests for additional information to the individual applicant companies. As a result of these interactions, the applicant companies Start Printed Page 2. On August 1. 8, 2. Spectrum Geo Inc. Spectrum, followed by revised versions on November 2. May 1. 4, 2. 01. 5, and July 6, 2. TGS NOPEC Geophysical Company TGS submitted an application on August 2. November 1. 7, 2. July 2. 1, 2. 01. We also received a request from ION Geo. Ventures ION on September 5, 2. June 2. 4, 2. 01. We subsequently posted these applications for public review and sought public input 8. FR 4. 51. 95 July 2. U. S. waters of the Mid and South Atlantic and the potential effects of geophysical survey activities on those species. We stated further that any comments should be supported by data or literature citations as appropriate, that comments indicating general support for or opposition to oil and gas exploration and development would not be considered inasmuch as such comments are not relevant to our consideration of the requests under the MMPA, and that we were particularly interested in information addressing the following topics 1. Global Positioning System Wikipedia. This article is about the American satellite navigation system. It is not to be confused with similar non American global and regional systems. For similar systems, see Satellite navigation. Global Positioning System GPSCountryies of origin. United States. OperatorsAFSPCType. Military, civilian. Status. Operational. Coverage. Global. Accuracy. 5 meters. Constellation size. Total satellites. Satellites in orbit. Army Changes Combat Patch Rules Of Poker. First launch. February 1. Total launches. 72. Orbital characteristics. Regimes6x MEO planes. Orbital height. 20,1. The Global Positioning System GPS, originally Navstar GPS,12 is a space based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Air Force. It is a global navigation satellite system that provides geolocation and time information to a GPS receiver anywhere on or near the Earth where there is an unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites. The GPS does not require the user to transmit any data, and it operates independently of any telephonic or internet reception, though these technologies can enhance the usefulness of the GPS positioning information. The GPS provides critical positioning capabilities to military, civil, and commercial users around the world. The United States government created the system, maintains it, and makes it freely accessible to anyone with a GPS receiver. The GPS project was launched by the U. S. Department of Defense in 1. United States military and became fully operational in 1. It was allowed for civilian use in the 1. Advances in technology and new demands on the existing system have now led to efforts to modernize the GPS and implement the next generation of GPS Block IIIA satellites and Next Generation Operational Control System OCX. Announcements from Vice President Al Gore and the White House in 1. In 2. 00. 0, the U. S. Congress authorized the modernization effort, GPS III. In addition to GPS, other systems are in use or under development, mainly because the US government can selectively deny access to the system, as happened to the Indian military in 1. Kargil War, or degrade the service at any time. The Russian Global Navigation Satellite System GLONASS was developed contemporaneously with GPS, but suffered from incomplete coverage of the globe until the mid 2. GLONASS can be added to GPS devices, making more satellites available and enabling positions to be fixed more quickly and accurately, to within two meters. There are also the European Union Galileo positioning system, Chinas Bei. Dou Navigation Satellite System, Indias NAVIC and Japans Quasi Zenith Satellite System. HistoryeditThe GPS project was launched in the United States in 1. The U. S. Department of Defense developed the system, which originally used 2. It was initially developed for use by the United States military and became fully operational in 1. It was allowed for civilian use in the 1. Roger L. Easton of the Naval Research Laboratory, Ivan A. Getting of The Aerospace Corporation, and Bradford Parkinson of the Applied Physics Laboratory are credited with inventing it. The design of GPS is based partly on similar ground based radio navigation systems, such as LORAN and the Decca Navigator, developed in the early 1. British Royal Navy during World War II. Friedwardt Winterberg1. Special and general relativity predict that the clocks on the GPS satellites would be seen by the Earths observers to run 3. Earth. The GPS calculated positions would quickly drift into error, accumulating to 1. This was corrected for in the design of GPS. PredecessorseditThe Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, in 1. Two American physicists, William Guier and George Weiffenbach, at Johns Hopkinss Applied Physics Laboratory APL, decided to monitor Sputniks radio transmissions. Within hours they realized that, because of the Doppler effect, they could pinpoint where the satellite was along its orbit. The Director of the APL gave them access to their UNIVAC to do the heavy calculations required. The next spring, Frank Mc. Clure, the deputy director of the APL, asked Guier and Weiffenbach to investigate the inverse problem  pinpointing the users location, given that of the satellite. At the time, the Navy was developing the submarine launched Polaris missile, which required them to know the submarines location. This led them and APL to develop the TRANSIT system. In 1. 95. 9, ARPA renamed DARPA in 1. TRANSIT. 1. 41. The first satellite navigation system, TRANSIT, used by the United States Navy, was first successfully tested in 1. It used a constellation of five satellites and could provide a navigational fix approximately once per hour. In 1. 96. 7, the U. S. Navy developed the Timation satellite, which proved the feasibility of placing accurate clocks in space, a technology required by GPS. In the 1. 97. 0s, the ground based OMEGA navigation system, based on phase comparison of signal transmission from pairs of stations,1. Limitations of these systems drove the need for a more universal navigation solution with greater accuracy. While there were wide needs for accurate navigation in military and civilian sectors, almost none of those was seen as justification for the billions of dollars it would cost in research, development, deployment, and operation for a constellation of navigation satellites. During the Cold Wararms race, the nuclear threat to the existence of the United States was the one need that did justify this cost in the view of the United States Congress. This deterrent effect is why GPS was funded. It is also the reason for the ultra secrecy at that time. The nuclear triad consisted of the United States Navys submarine launched ballistic missiles SLBMs along with United States Air Force USAF strategic bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles ICBMs. Considered vital to the nuclear deterrence posture, accurate determination of the SLBM launch position was a force multiplier. Precise navigation would enable United States ballistic missile submarines to get an accurate fix of their positions before they launched their SLBMs. The USAF, with two thirds of the nuclear triad, also had requirements for a more accurate and reliable navigation system. The Navy and Air Force were developing their own technologies in parallel to solve what was essentially the same problem. To increase the survivability of ICBMs, there was a proposal to use mobile launch platforms comparable to the Russian SS 2. SS 2. 5 and so the need to fix the launch position had similarity to the SLBM situation. In 1. 96. 0, the Air Force proposed a radio navigation system called MOSAIC MObile System for Accurate ICBM Control that was essentially a 3 D LORAN. A follow on study, Project 5. GPS concept was born. That same year, the concept was pursued as Project 6. B, which had many of the attributes that you now see in GPS2. Air Force bombers as well as ICBMs. Updates from the Navy TRANSIT system were too slow for the high speeds of Air Force operation. The Naval Research Laboratory continued advancements with their Timation Time Navigation satellites, first launched in 1. Another important predecessor to GPS came from a different branch of the United States military. In 1. 96. 4, the United States Army orbited its first Sequential Collation of Range SECOR satellite used for geodetic surveying.