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…
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…
The Independent Inquiry Board formed to analyze the causes of the anomaly occurring during the orbital injection of satellites in the Galileo constellation by a Soyuz rocket launched from the Guiana Space Center on August 22 announced its definitive conclusions on Tuesday, October 7, 2014 following a meeting at Arianespace headquarters in Evry, near Paris. Read more…
On Aug. 22 the first two Galileo FOC satellites launched by Soyuz-STB Fregat-MT rocket were placed into the wrong orbit (https://galileognss.eu/galileo-foc-fm1-and-fm2-status-update/). European government officials said that the hydrazine fuel line was installed too close to a supercold helium line on the Fregat upper stage.
The installation caused the hydrazine to freeze long enough to upset the Fregat stage’s orientation and cause the two satellites’ release into an orbit that is both too low and in the wrong inclination, officials said. Read more…
Doresa and Milena, the fifth and sixth Galileo satellites, have been in a safe state since 28 August, fully under control from ESA’s centre in Darmstadt, Germany, despite having been released on 22 August into lower and elliptical orbits instead of the expected circular orbits.
The potential of exploiting the satellites to maximum advantage, despite their unplanned injection orbits and within the limited propulsion capabilities, is being investigated. Read more…
