The first four Galileo satellites are already in orbit and operational. Over the course of 2014 six more satellites are planned to join them in three separate Soyuz launches. Galileo initial services are scheduled to start by the end of this year.

Galileo Early Services

PRS (Public Regulated Service) is designed to provide position and timing to specific and authorized users requiring a high continuity of service using encrypted data. Typical PRS user will be organizations involved in public safety and security (police, fire fighters, health services, coast guards, etc.). Read more…

Galileo, once fully operational, will offer four high-performance services worldwide:

Open Service (OS) Galileo open and free of charge service set up for positioning and timing services.

Galileo High Accuracy Service (HAS): Formerly known as Galileo Commercial Service (CS). A service complementing theOS by providing an additional navigation signal and added-value services in a different frequency band. The HAS signal can be encrypted in order to control the access to the Galileo HAS services.

Public Regulated Service (PRS) Service restricted to government-authorised users, for sensitive applications that require a high level of service continuity.

Search and Rescue Service (SAR) Galileo will be an important element of MEOSAR (Medium Earth Orbit Search and Rescue system), and thus a key contributor to Cospas-Sarsat, the international satellite-based search and rescue distress alert detection and information distribution system. Galileo satellites will receive emergency beacons carried on ships, planes or people and send them back to national rescue centres. Also a feedback to a beacon could be sent, being this exclusive with Galileo.