What is Galileo ?
Who is leading the Galileo Program Initiative?
Why Europe needs Galileo ?
Whose in involved in Galileo?
What are the possible Galileo Applications?
What are the existing Global Navigation Satellite Systems?
Will Galileo be compatible with others systems?
How many satellites will form the Galileo Constellation?
What is GSA?
What is EGNOS?
What is the GIANT Project?
What is Galileo?
Galileo is the European Global Navigation Satellite System under civil control. It will consist of 30 satellites, the associated ground infrastructure and regional/local augmentations. This will allow for many applications, products and services to be developed for use in a range of domains including transport, telecommunications, fisheries and agriculture, civil protection, and construction.
Who is leading the Galileo Program Initiative?
The Galileo Programme is a joint initiative of the European Community (EC) and the European Space Agency (ESA)
Why Europe needs Galileo?
GALILEO will ensure European economies' from independence from other states’ systems, which could deny access to civil users at any time, and to enhance safety and reliability. The only systems currently in existence are the United States Global Positioning Service (GPS) and the Russian GLONASS system, both military but made available to civil users without any guarantee for continuity.
Important macro-economic benefits will be derived from GALILEO, in particular through achieving a European share in the equipment market, efficiency savings for industry as well as social benefits e.g. through cheaper transport, reduced congestion and less pollution.
Above that, with its open service at least offering the same performances as GPS by the time of GALILEO's deployment, GALILEO will offer also value added services with integrity provision and, in some cases, service guarantees, based on a certifiable system.
Whose in involved in Galileo?
In addition to the European States involved in the programme, USA, China, Israel, Morocco, Ukraine, South Korea and Egypt have joined the Programme.
Argentina and Brazil both expressed their interest to join the programme.
What are the possible Galileo Applications?
Galileo will offer everybody a myriad of possibilities with satellite positioning services with guaranteed reliability: GALILEO will be used in all modes of transportation for navigation, traffic and fleet management, tracking, surveillance and emergency systems.. Moreover, it has many non transport application such as: Financial, Environment, Energy, Civil Protection and Civil Engineering,, Agriculture, and Telecommunications.
What are the existing Global Navigation Satellite Systems?
The USA GPS and the Russian GLONASS are the systems currently operational. The Chinese system BEIDO and the Indian system are in implementation phase.
Will Galileo be compatible with others systems?
The Galileo system is designed to be compatible and interoperable with GPS and GLONASS. The Galileo geodetic reference frame will be linked to ITRF (International Terrestrial Reference Frame) to which the GPS Reference frame is also linked. There are also plans to broadcast the time offset between Galileo and GPS times.
How many satellites will form the Galileo Constellation?
The fully deployed Galileo system consists of 30 satellites (27 operational + 3 active spares), positioned in three circular Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) planes at 23 222 km altitude above the Earth, and at an inclination of the orbital planes of 56 degrees with reference to the equatorial plane.
What is GSA?
The GNSS Supervisory Authority (GSA) is the new Community Agency in charge of the management the public interest, to be the regulatory authority the European GNSS Programme, Galileo. The GSA is also in charge to control the use of funds and manage the related R&D activities. In particular, in Latin America Region, GSA funds and manages LATINO, CELESTE and FLARE projects. For more information about GSA please visit the GSA web site: http://ec.europa.eu/transport/gsa/about.html
What is EGNOS?
EGNOS, the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service, is Europe's first venture into satellite navigation. EGNOS ,a joint project of ESA, the European Commission and Eurocontrol, the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation. ) is a satellite based augmentation system (SBAS)
EGNOS augments the two military satellite navigation systems now operating, the US GPS and Russian GLONASS systems, and makes them suitable for safety critical applications such as flying aircraft or navigating ships through narrow channels..
EGNOS services are already provided in Western Europe and the Mediterranean and may be extended to cover other areas, including Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, South America and Asia.
Similar service is provided in North America by the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS), and in Asia, notably Japan, by the Multi-functional Satellite Augmentation System (MSAS).
What is the GIANT Project ?
In order to speed-up the introduction of GNSS for air navigation, the European
Commission (EC) launched in July 2005 the GIANT (GNSS Introduction in the
AviatioN SecTor) project within the 6th Framework Programme, managed by the
Galileo Joint Undertaking (GJU), and later on by the GNSS Supervisory Authority
(GSA), with the involvement of EUROCONTROL.
