The Signal Health Status (SHS) flags are set to “Test” and the Data Validity Status (DVS) flags to WWG (working without guarantee). The satellites will not be included in the broadcast almanacs.
Users are requested to provide feedback on usage of GSAT0201 and GSAT0202 by contacting the help desk on the European GNSS Service Centre web portal.
Europe’s fifth and sixth Galileo satellites, subject to complex salvage manoeuvres following their launch last year into incorrect orbits, will help to perform an ambitious year-long test of Einstein’s theory of General Relativity (clocks run more slowly the closer they are to heavy objects).
Galileos 5 and 6 were launched together by a Soyuz rocket on 22 August 2014. But the faulty upper stage stranded them in elongated orbits that blocked their use for navigation.
ESA’s specialists moved into action and oversaw a demanding set of manoeuvres to raise the low points of their orbits and make them more circular.
“The satellites can now reliably operate their navigation payloads continuously, and the European Commission, with the support of ESA, is assessing their eventual operational use,” explains ESA’s senior satnav advisor Javier Ventura-Traveset.
“In the meantime, the satellites have accidentally become extremely useful scientifically, as tools to test Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity by measuring more accurately than ever before the way that gravity affects the passing of time.” Read more…
The sixth Galileo satellite has now entered its corrected target orbit, which will allow detailed testing to assess the performance of its navigation payload.
Launched with the fifth Galileo last August, its initial elongated orbit saw it travelling as high as 25900 km above Earth and down to a low point of 13713 km, confusing the Earth sensor used to point its navigation antennas at the ground. Read more…
Galileo’s fifth satellite (FOC), recently recovered from the wrong orbit, has been combined with three predecessors (IOV) to provide its first position fix.
Galileo fix using fifth satellite
Test receivers at ESA’s technical centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, and at the Galileo In-Orbit Test station at Redu in Belgium received the signals at 12:48 GMT on 9 December from the quartet of satellites and fixed their horizontal positions to better than 2 m. This achievement is particularly significant because the fifth satellite is the first of a new design of 22 Galileos set to be launched over the next few years. Read more…
Europe’s fifth Galileo satellite, one of two delivered into a wrong orbit by VS09 Soyuz-Fregat launcher in August, has transmitted its first navigation signal in space on Saturday 29 November 2014. It has reached its new target orbit and its navigation payload has been successfully switched on.
A detailed test campaign is under way now the satellite has reached a more suitable orbit for navigation purposes. Read more…
The fifth Galileo navigation satellite, one of the two left in an incorrect orbit when being launched this summer, has begun maneuvering into a higher orbit where the satellite’s navigation payload and all other systems will be checked out.
A pair of fully functioning Galileo navigation satellites was recently delivered to its operators, as preparations get underway for the next round of launches.
On 27–28 September, the two satellites launched on 22 August were handed over from ESA’s Space Operations Centre, ESOC, in Darmstadt, Germany, to the Galileo Control Centre, Oberpfaffenhofen, which will care for them pending a final decision on their use. Read more…
