The European satellite-navigation system, Galileo, remains offline as it suffered an outage on July 12, which was described as a technical incident regarding its ground infrastructure. Engineers are working to fix the problem, but as of now there is no update regarding when the service will resume.
Because of the problem, all receivers will not be receiving any useable timing or positional information. These devices will have to rely on the data received from GPS.
Currently, Galileo is still on a pilot phase, meaning it would not yet be expected to lead critical applications.
[smlsubform prepend=”GET THE SAFETY4SEA IN YOUR INBOX!” showname=false emailtxt=”” emailholder=”Enter your email address” showsubmit=true submittxt=”Submit” jsthanks=false thankyou=”Thank you for subscribing to our mailing list”]
What is more, GSA issued a notification on July 11, warning that Galileo’s signals might become unreliable, while another update was sent out a day after, informing that the service was out of use until further notice.
Galileo is the European Union’s Global Satellite Navigation System (GNSS). Sometimes called the ‘European GPS’, Galileo provides accurate positioning and timing information. Once complete in 2020, Galileo aims to be the most precise satellite navigation system in the world.
Anyone with a Galileo enabled device can use its signals for positioning, navigation and timing. Galileo services are based on highly accurate signals, but during the current initial phase they are not available all the time and therefore are used in combination with other satellite navigation systems such as GPS.
Every addition to the constellation gradually improves Galileo availability and performance worldwide. Once the constellation reaches 30 satellites in 2020, Galileo will be fully operational and independent, meaning that a position could be established autonomously everywhere and anytime using Galileo satellites only. Currently, there are 22 operational satellites in orbit.
With the EU promoting Galileo as an alternative to the American GPS, such an outage is considered a significant concern.
