Most of Munich is an ultra-modern German city, albeit one of the most expensive cities in Europe, where you can travel anywhere by tram, automobile, S-Bahn, rail or taxi. But why bother when you have the opportunity and thrill of walking through the old city center and have Bavarians greet you with “May God greet you” or “God bless­”? — what a way to say hello. That experience, which brings back fond memories — more on that in my main column — combined with the wonderful aromas from bakeries and early morning baristas hard at work, which are hard to pass by, made the short walk to the Residenz München seem all too short; and then you are there — greeted with the magnificence of the Munich Satellite Summit venue.

There is a reason the Munich Satellite Summit is billed as a summit and not a symposium or conference. It’s a different atmosphere that invites group chats, informal get-togethers, and networking. One item of note that I came away with is that the Chinese are looking for help and partners for their PNT constellations, of which there appear to be three in the making. But asked point blank when they would finally release the full ICD specifications for receivers (a partial ICD has been released) the answer was the same as last year. They did not know when that might happen. It is hard to build receivers and support a specific program, much less three PNT constellations, when you don’t have the specifications.