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Euro-GPS underway
EUROPE'S MUCH DELAYED GPS project is finally beginning in earnest.
The first contracts are being awarded to the companies that will start to build the operational network for Galileo. The European Commission will buy all the spacecraft, rockets and system management in deals totalling more than half a billion euros.
Galileo was supposed to be a much improved version of the US Global Positioning System (GPS) with more advanced technology to give quicker, more accurate locations. It is supposed to be accurate to a metre rather than the current GPS error of several metres.
Arianespace of France will be asked to launch the satellites that will be at the heart of the system. It will send up spacecraft in batches of two initially, on Russian-built Soyuz rockets that will fly out of Sinnamary in French Guiana.
A batch of at least eight satellites will be ordered from a consortium led by OHB System of Germany. Its major partner is Surrey Satellite Technology Limited from Blighty, which will be integrate the complex payloads on the spacecraft, including the atomic clocks.
At this point it appears that the EU is snubbing Europe's biggest space company, EADS Astrium, and not buying any satellites from the outfit which developed much of the technology and know-how for the sat-nav system.
System support will be provided by Thales Alenia Space of Italy and the Dutch outfit Logica.
Galileo should have been switched on much earlier but hit all sorts of problems. Not least were those caused by the EU's allies the Americans who thought a rival system to GPS might be used to attack its armed forces.
EU member-states have had to agree to fund the entire project and what should have cost European taxpayers no more than 1.8 billion euros will now probably cost them in excess of 5 billion euros.
If it all works out eventually Galileo should be operating by the end of 2013. µ
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All the space shuttles are being canned this year, just as well Europeans are putting some stuff into space.
NASA is probably going to have to rely on Europeans, Chinese, Russians and Indians to put it's stuff into space now.
Space is only a few miles up, and delivering stuff there is just a fancy pants DHL driver. That's all, except the DHL guy gets to go home at the end of the day, and has less than 1 in 100 chance of his truck blowing up.
I wonder how much more reliable the Space Shuttle would have been if Toyota or Honda would have built it?
Pentagon, given the friendly fire incidents in which you Yanks are specialised, you would destroy half of your own GPS sats, before striking one of the European ones.
I'm glad Europe is building something of their own instead of relying on the scraps the US allows them to use. Maybe it's a sign of things to come too.
I also hope someone cracks the encryption on these new satellites so we can get more accurate GPS readings without a fee.
I probly speld it rong, did I?
Ome of the main reasons for building Galileo is that the EU does not want to drop behind in related technology.
Also the commercial agreements will keep the money in the EU. And it would no surprise me if there where US customers too. Also for the military the increased accuracy is certainly important.
GPS is perfectly accurate enough to tell the speed of a plane. I've done it while flying in a commercial jet. My GPS unit displayed a speed, and it matched the one being displayed on the TV monitor (within a couple mph).
Not sure why you think the Galileo system would have kept 447 from crashing. It's the fault of the plane manufacturer for using sensors that can freeze as opposed to alternatives. (though depending on the age of the aircraft, it could have easily been built prior to GPS availability)
If Europe wants their own version of GPS, fine by me. Redundancy is rarely a bad thing. Plus, it's not my tax dollars, so spend away.
But I'm confused why you all think GPS isn't accurate enough or a "rusty" system. It is heavily used by our military, and as such will never be allowed to fail on a level that would hamper their abilities for any prolonged period of time.
USA always degraded GPS signal to the rest of the world, while only their military get full precision.
It's true that such system would allow precise atacks agains american positions, but hey, why can they have it and the rest of the world can't?
Americans brought terrorism upon themselves by putting their fingers where they weren't called. Hell, they even get domestic terrorists...
Maybe with a precise global positioning system, accidents like AirFrance 447 flight would be mitigated (airspeed sensors were frozen, leading the computer system to stall the plane over the atlantic). Such sensors would be used just as backup, as the speed would be calculated based by an Galileo based system.
For "System support" there's NO DEAL for Logica.
(http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/10/7&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en)
HaHa, silly Euro-peons! Do you honestly think we won't be able to disable everyone else's GPS systems in the event of hostilities? Plus turn off everyone else's access to ours? We'll be damned if we'll let you have access to the benefits if you don't behave yourselves and do what we tell you...
....of two systems.
After all I dont trust those sneaky Americans and their rusty system if the going gets tough.
It's been nice, dont get me wrong but I like the option of having a fallback if someone throws their toys out of the pram.
Redundancy (not too mention, independence) alone would make it well worth its price. Of course its much more than that. But by all means think its more stupid for the EU to spend $5B on technology that will benefit us all for decades to come, instead of handing out 200x as much to wallstreet or spending 10x as much on redundant fighterplanes. Silly EU.
What a waste of money. This is the sort of thing some rich OPEC country would do.
I'm astonished that Nick didn't find a way of proving that the delays in Galileo are all Apple's fault. He seems to think they're responsible for everything else from global warming to not being able to find a parking space.
to research his articles he might have a clue as to what he's talking about. 2D GPS accuracy is between about 5 and 15 meters, with up to 35 meters error vertically. The US of A can decide to switch on the CA signal degradation, which reduces accuracy further to +/- 100 meters.
Galileo comes in three variants. The free (OS) version transmits on two frequency bands. If your receiver can use both bands then you get +/- 4 meters 2D accuracy and +/- 8 meters vertically. If it can use only one band then it's only about as accurate as GPS. The second version, the Commercial Service (CS) uses a third frequency band and can bring accuracy down to +/1 meter (0.1 meter with ground augmentation) but is encrypted and is intended as a paid service. The third service (PRS) is also encrypted and provides robust protection against signal jamming.
The second and third services provide the kind of accuracy and robustness required for aircraft to fly precision approaches to airfields which don't have (very expensive) glide slope radio systems. They also enable aircraft to fly much more complex approaches (rather than in a straight line towards the runway for 5-10 miles), avoiding flying over noise sensitive areas and reducing fuel burned. Most sane people would regard these as good things.