Galileo and EGNOS: applications and services for Europe
The European Commission estimates that 6-7 % of European GDP – around EUR 800 billion by value – is already dependent on satellite navigation. But European users have no alternative today other than to take their positions from US GPS or Russian Glonass satellites. In the coming years, Galileo, Europe’s own global navigation satellite system, aims to change that. Galileo already has six satellites up in orbit. More will be launched this year with the ultimate aim of achieving early service by 2016 and full service by 2020. When the constellation is fully operational, what will the impact be for Europeans, particularly the transport sector? And how is the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) – which is currently operational – already impacting us? Experts from the space and transport industries, as well as Commission representatives gathered at this week’s Seventh Annual Conference on European Space Policy to discuss the issue. The Galileo mission ran into problems last year when a pair of satellites was delivered into the wrong orbit by a faulty upper stage. Although the orbit of one of the satellites has since been changed to allow checking of its navigation payload, the setback caused much discussion. According to Didier Faivre, Director of Galileo and Navigation-Related Activities at the European Space Agency (ESA), the failure cost the mission six months in terms of deployment. Dominique Riquet, Vice-Chair, TRAN committee in the European Parliament, noted that he wasn’t flustered by these problems: ‘I’m not concerned by recent setbacks – this sort of thing happens with pioneering policies.’ Instead he focused on what Galileo, along with the EGNOS, will deliver to Europeans when fully operational: ‘The applications of Galileo and EGNOS will be a useful tool for economic development – we just have to look at the US to see the level of economic impact from GPS’. ‘However’, he cautioned, ‘we do not have a robust, credible plan for the development of the downstream sector. It would be a good idea to organise the sector in the interest of Europe now.’ Matthias Petschke, Director of the DG for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, addressed MEP Riquet’s concerns noting that the Commission is also keen to see the building of an infrastructure to enable industry in the application sector to make use of Galileo. He stated, ‘We’ve been pushing for years now for services delivery and the development of applications.’ He also pointed to the progress made in 2014 to ensure Galileo is a useful tool for Europeans. For example, in December a political agreement was reached to ensure that new cars will have EGNOS-Galileo functionalities. Meanwhile, the EGNOS Safety of Life (SoL) Service is already guaranteed for use in aviation, for all phases of flight within the corresponding EGNOS SoL Service area. The key objective with both Galileo and EGNOS, according to Petschke is the provision of services to end-users. Didier Faivre of ESA suggested that in order to ensure user-uptake, Galileo must not been looked at in isolation – it must interconnect with existing systems such as GPS, and as such the public sector will have to work together with global partners. Faivre also pointed to the need to support those developing applications: ‘What can we do? We can contribute to covering some of the risk. We can offer developers validation tools and test beds which will give investors confidence in applications.’ Patrick Ky, Executive Director of the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), provided the aviation industry perspective, highlighting safety as the major concern of the sector: ‘In our certification of components and air buses, we require a level of one breakdown every billion hours of flight. If space components become critical components in aviation, someone will have to give me the same guarantee and we will verify that it’s based in evidence’. Ky added, ’This is about linking two different worlds that use the same tools but speak a very different language.’ Carlo des Dorides, Executive Director of European GNSS Agency (GSA) assured that these rigorous safety standards would be met. 36 satellites are intended for the whole Galileo system. Three are almost ready for launch to join the six already in orbit. Meanwhile the EGNOS Open Service has been available since 1 October 2009, and EGNOS positioning data are freely available in Europe through satellite signals to anyone equipped with an EGNOS-enabled GPS. For further information, please visit: Seventh Annual Conference on European Space Policy http://www.spaceconference.eu/intro.html(opens in new window) European GNSS Agency (GSA) http://www.gsa.europa.eu/galileo/why-galileo#(opens in new window)
Countries
Belgium