Category Archives: Galileo Ground Segment

Galileo Ground Segment

EU relocates GSMC facility to Spain

A scientist works on the Galileo satellite system

A scientist works on the Galileo satellite system

A part of the infrastructure for the Galileo satellite system will be relocated from the Britain to Spain because of the UK’s departure from the EU, the European Commission has announced.

The back-up Galileo security monitoring centre for Galileo was originally awarded to London in 2010 after a competitive process.

The centre, which was due to become fully operational later this year, controls access to the satellite system and provides around-the-clock monitoring of it when the main security centre, near Paris, is offline. Read more…

Galileo Reference Centre Construction officially started

Galileo Reference Centre. NoordwijkToday marks the official start of the building of the Galileo Reference Centre (GRC) at the Space Business Park in Noordwijk. The GRC will measure the quality of services of the European satellite navigation system Galileo. The centre will also be in contact with other satellite navigation systems such as the American Global Positioning System.

The Galileo Reference Centre agreement was signed by the Dutch Minister of Infrastructure and Environment Melanie Schultz van Haegen and European Commissioner of Internal Market Elżbieta Bieńkowska at the European Space Solutions Conference in The Hague last May. Read more…

Galileo 9 & 10 handed-over to Galileo Control Centre

Flight Dynamics at ESAOn 20 September at 18:22 CEST, the joint ESA/CNES team at ESOC confirmed that handover of Galileo satellites 9 & 10 to the Galileo Control Centre in DLR near Munich for continuation of their mission was complete.

After a flawless orbit injection by Soyuz on 11 September, the critical launch & early orbit phase (LEOP) went extremely well, and both satellites are in excellent health and now enroute to their final operational orbits. Read more…

New Galileo TT&C station in French Polinesia

The Spanish company Indra has been awarded a contract for the deployment in Papeete (French Polynesia) of a new Telemetry, Tracking and Command (TT&C) Station, which will expand the Galileo ground segment. This contract was awarded by Airbus Defence and Space in the UK. The project also includes the maintenance and evolution of all TT&C stations until 2016 for a global amount of €7.3M. The new TT&C station will join the two Uplink stations (ULS) already deployed by the same company in Papeete. Read more…

Galileo service interruption for Ground Segment Upgrade

Galileo’s navigation messages have been recently stopped, in order to enable the migration of a new release for Galileo’s world-spanning ground mission segment (GMS).

Galileo Mission Segment Operators

Galileo Mission Segment Operators

Although the actual navigation signals will continue to be transmitted, the generation and uplink of the navigation message – which renews the contents of the signal – was interrupted this monday and will last for about five weeks. Read more…