Monthly Archives: June 2014

First 50 Galileo fixes certified

Billions of satnav position fixes are performed daily, but determining your place in the world using Galileo system is quite new. So ESA offered to issue certificates for the very first 50 Galileo fixes, provoking responses from across the whole world.

The surprise was the extent of Galileo’s reach. While half the applications came from Galileo’s home continent, others came from the rest of the world, including Australia, Canada, China, Egypt, New Zealand, Russia, USA and Vietnam. Read more…

Galileo Increases Accuracy of Location-Based Services

Tests conducted by Rx Networks and the European GNSS Agency (GSA) confirm that Galileo provides real added value to citizens using Location Based Services (LBS). When used in addition to GPS and/or GLONASS, Galileo proved to significantly improve accuracy in challenging environments.

Rx Networks, a leading mobile location technology and services company, measured the performance of Galileo when used in various combinations with GPS and GLONASS. Conducted in such real-world environments as urban canyons and indoors, each test consisted of a three hour data capture of the GNSS signals which was later replayed to produce hundreds of fixes using a multi-constellation GNSS receiver from STMicroelectronics. Read more…

Third Galileo FOC satellite arrives at ESTEC

Latest Galileo navigation satellite has arrived at ESA’s Technical Centre (ESTEC) in the Netherlands for testing. Meanwhile the previous two satellites are ready to be launched together by Soyuz rocket this summer from the European spaceport in Kourou (French Guiana).

The new satellite travelled safely by lorry enclosed within an air-conditioned and environmentally controlled container from manufacturer OHB in Bremen (Germany). The container was unsealed only once the satellite had completed its journey by road to the cleanroom conditions in ESTEC, Europe’s largest site for spacecraft testing. Read more…