Tag: EAGER Newsletter

Galileo: Are We There Yet?

Europe’s ninth and tenth Galileo satellites being fueled by technicians in protective SCAPE suits within the Guiana Space Centre’s 3SB preparation building on Aug. 24. (Photo:ESA)

It has been a good late summer for the European Galileo programme. The latest launch on the night of 10 and 11 September has got the number of orbiting satellites in the EU’s GNSS constellation into double figures at last, and one-third of the way towards the ultimate target of 30.

The European Space Agency’s (ESA) press releases around the launch were positively euphoric, and there were many pictures of smiling ESA launch teams. And so there should be. The two new satellites (the fifth and sixth fully operational capability (FOC) versions named Alba and Oriana) will now inch their way towards their operational orbits and will soon be joined by two more satellites to be launched in December.

However, as we already know, one of the in-orbit validation (IOV) satellites (Sif) is not very well, having suffered a power failure in late May, and the first two FOC satellites (Doresa and Milena) ended up in the wrong orbit. At the considerable expense of a significant part of their fuel payloads, these two craft are now established in a more useful orbit and are the current subject of testing to determine the exact contribution they can make to the Galileo services.

The Commission and ESA are convinced that the outcome will be positive, with Doresa and Milena able to contribute to the network — or at least not degrade the network’s navigation performance. A final decision on if and/or how these two satellites integrate into the system will be made sometime next year.

In any case, they will be used for the provision of Galileo’s Search and Rescue services. And they are also to be made available for scientific research. One possible science area that has been discussed is to ‘repurpose’ the satellites to measure the slow down of time due to the Earth’s gravitational field as predicted by Einstein’s theory of relativity.

However, more worryingly, there are rumours of various glitches and performance issues with other in-orbit members of the constellation. Hopefully, they are just rumours; only time will tell.

Position Paper

Not surprisingly, those wanting to use the system are getting a tad frustrated. On Sept. 1, Galileo Services, a non-profit organisation involving 180 members including most of the active players in the EU GNSS industry, published a position paper entitled “Europe Must Succeed in the Global Navigation Market Race.”

The organisation’s aim is to foster an end-to-end vision of the Galileo system that can fully respond to user and market needs. The paper looks at the options to strengthen the competitiveness of the European GNSS downstream sector in the global market and calls for better coordination between the public and private sectors to develop new technologies, applications, services and industries in Europe as a key factor for success.

In particular, the paper stresses the necessity to urgently establish a European strategic plan to enhance Europe’s GNSS downstream industry’s competitiveness and to foster the uptake of the European GNSS, Galileo and the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS), with the aim to corner 33 percent of the global GNSS downstream market for Europe by 2025.

Galileo Services argues that unless an effective and long-term strategy is in place during the Galileo early services exploitation phase — from 2016, the current official start date for services — the window of opportunity for European industry will be closed. Europe’s goal of achieving GNSS autonomy is also at risk. The paper warns that Galileo is just one of three new GNSS solutions, along with the Russian GLONASS and Chinese BeiDou, that are complementing the U.S.’s GPS — and most applications do not require four GNSS constellations.

The target of European autonomy will be achieved if and only if Galileo is widely used with equipment designed and manufactured in Europe, as well as applications and services developed in Europe, concludes the paper.

More R&D Support

Part of the strategy should be enhanced support for EU GNSS technologies and applications. The European GNSS Agency (GSA) has just launched a new research support channel for GNSS chipset and receiver technologies in Europe.

The Fundamental Elements programme has a projected budget of EUR 100 million over the period 2015 to 2020 and is part, says the GSA, of an overall strategy of market uptake initiatives in accordance with EU regulations. “For the first time, EU regulation provides a financing tool for the market uptake of European GNSS chipsets and receivers,” said GSA Executive Director Carlo des Dorides in launching the new programme.

The Fundamental Elements programme complements the EU’s current Horizon 2020 research programme that focuses on adoption of Galileo and EGNOS via content and application development.

Two types of financing will be available via the Fundamental Elements programme: grants and procurement. Grants will be provided to cover up to 70 percent of funding requirements for a project, and intellectual property rights will stay with the beneficiary under the condition that the developed product is actively commercialised.

Procurement (at 100 percent funding) will be used only in cases where keeping intellectual property rights allow for the better fulfilment of the programme’s overall objectives. For example, by licensing it to different potential manufacturers rather than creating a monopoly supplier.

Meanwhile, EGNOS Continues

Of course, one EU GNSS, EGNOS, is operational. The GSA proudly announced that after extensive testing, the latest space segment — the SES-5 GEO satellite — is now fully functional. This will ensure the long-term service of EGNOS until at least 2026 and enable a range of performance improvements, including greater stability during periods of high ionospheric activity.

The SES-5 is a first step in the complete renewal of the EGNOS Space Segment, including the transition to dual-frequency, multi-constellation services. The renewal will be completed by the introduction of the ASTRA-5B signals and the procurement of a new EGNOS payload, both planned for 2016.

In parallel, the GSA and ESA have met formally to launch activities to develop the system further following the signing of a working agreement for EGNOS in July. Under the agreement, ESA will be responsible for the development and procurement of future EGNOS evolutions, such as the forthcoming release (V2.4.2), and a new generation of the EGNOS system (V3).

SES-5 GEO satellite (artist’s depiction, ILS/Loral).

JOHAN Sports Tracker

One of the annual gatherings of the whole European GNSS value chain will take place in October in Berlin with the Satellite Masters conference and awards ceremony. We can be sure that comforting words will be spoken by persons from the Commission, the GSA and ESA about their future plans and present progress. But the real buzz of this event is from the showcase of new ideas and applications for Galileo and EGNOS from pretty much every corner of Europe and beyond.

Despite the uncertainties expressed by some big industrial players, and slow progress in establishing the actual infrastructure, there is still an entrepreneurial enthusiasm from the ‘small guys’ to get involved in this space-based business.

I have attended these events for a few years now. One of the most enthusiastic winners of recent years is JOHAN, a sports application named after renowned Dutch soccer player and now sport commentator Johan Cruyff.

The application is the brainchild of Dutch graduate Jelle Reichert, whom I first met when he won the 2013 European Satellite Navigation Competition with this innovative EGNOS-enhanced tracking idea. “We are now operational with our first four clients! And in a final testing phase we are making the system ready for a commercial launch at the beginning of 2016,” he tells me. “We also just have an investor on board, which allows us to hire personnel and take the final steps to become really commercially ready.”

In just 18 months, Jelle’s idea has been brought into life with support from GSA and ESA. The JOHAN sports tracker and application helps improve teams by monitoring on-field performance. The system’s small, lightweight trackers, or pebbles, use GNSS technology such as EGNOS to ensure reliability and precision.

The trackers are small and light so they can fit into training vests worn by players across a variety of field sports, though early adopters have all been football teams so far. The trackers measure location, speed, distance, acceleration and orientation statistics, which are then visualized in an online data platform for coaches and players. This allows coaches to monitor workload and performance, and get tactical information and event analysis and ensure players’ strengths are used to the whole team’s advantage. Players can spot weaknesses and improve their individual game over time.

“You can see who is training too hard and who has a higher chance of injury, as well as who is strong in which performance aspects, such as endurance, sprint, agility or recovery,” explains Jelle.

I look forward to hearing about lots more grassroots GNSS innovation in Berlin.

And Finally … An Out-of-This-World App?

Take me to the moon! And why not, indeed? It appears that Galileo could be a vital part of an interplanetary navigation system. Or at least it could help (with GPS) spacecraft to routinely navigate to the moon.

A paper in Acta Astronautica highlights the strict requirements in terms of performance, flexibility and cost for all the spacecraft subsystems required to navigate to the moon. GNSS could introduce an easier way to provide an autonomous orbit determination system using an on-board GNSS receiver. While GNSS receivers have already been used successfully to pilot craft in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), their use for very High Earth Orbit (HEO) up to and including the Moon is an active research area.

The study from researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) made use of the Spirent GSS8000 multi-GNSS constellation simulator, which supports simultaneously the GPS and Galileo systems with L1, L5, E1 and E5 frequency bands. It showed that GNSS signals can be tracked up to the Moon’s surface, but would need new, more sensitive GNSS receiver technology. The paper describes a possible navigation solution that uses a double constellation GPS-Galileo receiver aided by an on-board orbital filter system to improve the accuracy of the navigation solution and achieve the required sensitivity. Without the filter, position error below 700 metres is possible, but the orbital filter increases the position accuracy to within about 100 metres.

Vincenzo Capuano from the EPFL team tells me that a further paper on the use of an GPS L1 C/A based orbital filter for Moon transfer orbits will be published soon, which also shows an achievable accuracy of a few hundred meters. So who needs expensive tracking stations for a flight to the moon?

But the work also has a very practical down-to-Earth application. The EPFL team is developing more sensitive GNSS receivers to pick up these weak signals, and the new receivers could find applications on Earth where current receivers often struggle to get a location, such as inside buildings or in built-up areas, where signals are weak.

A bientȏt, as they say in these parts.

September 28, 2015
EGNOS Dream Now a Reality

EGNOS demonstration equipment aboard an Airbus ATR-42. (Photo by Tim Reynolds)

Toulouse, France, an aerospace city and the center of the French aerospace industry, was the birthplace of EGNOS, Europe’s satellite-based augmentation system (SBAS), in 1994. So it was appropriate that the first-ever EGNOS Flight Event was organized there in May by the European GNSS Agency (GSA) and the European Commission.

EGNOS is the acronym for European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service. It is also songe — the French word for “dream’”— spelled backwards and, according to Jean-Luc Moudenc, mayor of Toulouse, that is how the name originated.

The dream is now very much a reality. Since its certification for civil aviation in 2011, EGNOS has made steady progress in implementation. Today, 111 airports in 15 countries across Europe benefit from EGNOS, and many more are preparing for implementation — 171 LPV (localizer performance with vertical guidance) and 86 BARO approaches are already certified for use.

The EGNOS Flight Event was organized in collaboration with Airbus and brought together aviation media and other sector stakeholders for a briefing and demonstration of EGNOS, how it works, its benefits for aviation and a glimpse at its future.

The state-of-the-art Airbus A350 WXB is the first wide-body airliner equipped with the SLS. (Photo by Tim Reynolds)

EGNOS for Airbus

It was clear that Airbus sees integration of EGNOS, and SBAS generally, into the avionics of its product offerings, from helicopters to the giant Beluga transport plane, as very much part of the future.

A highlight of the event was a “show and tell” with the Airbus A350 WXB — a real beauty of an airplane. Participants were given a tour of this new state-of-the-art wide-bodied airliner, including a simulation of an EGNOS-enabled LPV landing in the cockpit. Airbus test pilot Jean-Christophe Lair described the A350’s new Satellite-based Landing System (SLS) that works with SBAS such as EGNOS. This is the first time such a system has been installed on a wide-body airliner and will be supplied as a standard feature to all customers.

EGNOS is fully integrated into a common harmonised landing system interface on the A350 — the SLS — that allows the pilot to fly precision approaches like an ILS with geometrical vertical guidance down to 200 feet. This new navigation system will allow Airbus users a wider range of solutions to optimise operations and increase accessibility without any compromise on safety.

“All the systems look the same to the pilot — it is a seamless integration of EGNOS — so no human-factor issues,” said Jean-Christophe. Pilot feedback had been excellent with some 3,000 hours flown on LPV approaches using both EGNOS in Europe and WAAS in North America. “We have experienced no technical or operational issues with SBAS operations,” he claimed. “The SLS shows value every day that it is used.”

SLS/LPV is operationally equivalent to CAT 1 ILS, but brings significant additional assets above the LPV minimum such as the secure coding of the final approach segment and the fact that the SBAS/ LPV vertical profile is geometric and fixed in space. The system can also be useful for creating en-route diversions and allows creation of instrumented approaches. Overall the SLS development on the A350 XWB had been a very positive experience he stated.

Earlier Philippe Rollet, senior expert Air Traffic Management at Airbus, had said that “EGNOS was more important for helicopters than aircraft.” The enhanced EGNOS guidance enabling access to helipads in urban environments. “With EGNOS you can have a helipads everywhere and the system increases operational safety in bad weather,” he claimed. “For Airbus all new helicopter models will be EGNOS capable – it is the baseline for Airbus.”

This enhanced access facility was demonstrated via the GSA-funded GARDEN project that is using EGNOS to enable increased safety and better access for helicopters, for example, enabling air ambulances to more easily access city centre hospitals. EGNOS implementation was demonstrated in the cockpit of an Airbus H175 multi-mission helicopter used as a test-bed for GARDEN.

Technology at Work In Flight. EGNOS was also in action during a series of flights for the media using EGNOS for landing procedures on an ATR turboprop development craft. The plane was equipped with additional avionic displays in the main cabin, and this allowed the press to watch the technology at work without crowding out the pilots on the flight deck! The flight demonstration took off from Blagnac for a 15-minute circuit around the beautiful “pink” city of Toulouse before demonstrating an immaculate EGNOS LPV approach and landing.

Earlier the “press pack” had also been taken on a tour of the massive assembly plant for the Airbus A380 double-decker airliner next to the airport. Well worth a visit if you are ever in the area! In fact, Toulouse is blessed with aerospace tourism attractions such as the City of Space.

Expanding EGNOS?

The media was welcomed to the event by GSA executive director Carlo des Dorides. He emphasised that EGNOS for aviation delivers high precision at low cost. “EGNOS is Europe’s first satellite navigation system — and already has a good success story to tell,” he said. “It helps aviation to be safer, greener and more efficient.” He highlighted EGNOS’s ability to deliver continuous integrity protection in compliance with ICAO standards allowing CAT 1 approaches with more than 99 percent availability.

“Today 142 airports across Europe are benefitting from EGNOS, and the number is growing steadily,” he said. EGNOS’s success in aviation was also helping to spread the word for applications in other transport sectors such as maritime.

With a near-term target of 500 runways to be EGNOS enabled in Europe, the support available for airports and operators wanting to benefit from EGNOS was emphasised by Gian Gherardo Calini, the head of market development at GSA. During 2015 the agency has allotted €6 million to co-fund projects to implement EGNOS in aviation. A similar amount had also been allocated in 2014. GSA provided technical and educational support for implementation as well as financial assistance.

He saw the benefits being increased safety, operational enhancements, plus reduced cost and environmental impact. Widespread implementation would enable new point-to-point commercial airline opportunities.

Key to Significant Growth. EGNOS could be the key to a significant growth in general aviation in Europe. “The need to install ILS made the business case for most general aviation airfield out of the question,” claimed Martin Robinson, senior vice president of the International Council of Aircraft Owner and Pilot Association (IAOPA). There are 4,649 aerodromes in Europe and some 50,000 general aviation aircraft operating from them. In comparison to the situation in the U.S., only a small percentage the aerodromes had been. Of course, the widespread uptake of WAAS in the U.S. is a clear result of a deliberate federal strategy.

“There is definitely room for growth,” said Robinson. “EGNOS will help to provide greater access to aerodromes throughout Europe and to improve safety, but we need to be much quicker if we are to realise these benefits sooner.” He felt every general aviation airfield needed a clear business plan working towards EGNOS ability.

There was some dispute about the exact cost of implementing an EGNOS approach as it varies from location to location, but in broad terms the one-off cost of implementation seems to be equivalent to the annual maintenance cost of on-the-ground ILS equipment. With these economics, wider uptake by regional airports in Europe should be a no-brainer; however, the go or no decision often came down to individuals, said Robinson. He believes European countries need to be more willing to support the European Commission in introducing the technology. Perhaps a more region-led approach is required?

The French government line on EGNOS was given by David Comby of the French Ministry for Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy, who said France sees EGNOS as essential part of the modernisation process for European airspace making flying safer, more efficient, greener and more cost effective. France was working hard on EGNOS implementation, and it was possible that all French runway ends (~200) would be equipped for EGNOS by 2018.

EGNOS over Africa?

The potential for expansion of EGNOS / SBAS across the globe is huge. Despite having to battle against a barrage of taxiing aircraft noise, Jean-Marc Piéplu Head of EGNOS Exploitation at GSA described the upgrade path for EGNOS from the current Version 2 to EGNOS V3. “Version three will feature new capabilities,” he said. “Dual-frequency and dual-constellation with both GPS and Galileo signals available.”

In theory EGNOS V3 could provide EGNOS / SBAS coverage for aviation to more than 90 percent of the global land surface. Piéplu indicated that if the political will was there to implement, then this extension of coverage could be accomplished in 10 years. There were no outstanding technical issues. He also said that there were no current plans to use GLONASS signals with EGNOS.

A key market could be Africa. Establishment of transport infrastructure is seen as a key enabler for sustainable development in the less-developed world, and SBAS-based infrastructure could provide a cost-effective solution to boost connectivity safely without having to invest in vulnerable ground-based equipment.

Julien Lapie from the Agency for Air Navigation Safety in Africa and Madagascar (ASECNA) highlighted that over 40% of citizens in Africa were more than 250 miles from an ILS-equipped airport. Negotiations on use of EGNOS over Africa are ongoing, but could be completed as soon as 2016.

As the not-so-subtle EGNOS advertising tag goes: It’s there. Use it.

June 29, 2015
An Early Gift from — and for — Galileo

They said it wasn’t possible — well to be frank, I said it wasn’t possible – but one of the two “misplaced” Galileo satellites, plucky Doresa, has delivered an early Christmas present to the European GNSS community by providing a first fix on Tuesday, December 9. The signal was received at the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) technical centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands and at the Galileo In-Orbit-Validation (IOV) test station at Redu in Belgium. Doresa teamed with the remaining three functioning Galileo IOV satellites to provide a Galileo positioning data first fix with horizontal accuracy better than two metres.

Since then fixes have also been performed using Galileo’s Public Regulated Service (PRS), the civilian encrypted highest-precision signal and one of the constellation’s unique selling points.

The satellite had transmitted its first navigation signal in space on November 29, following its attainment of a safer, more stable, and more circular orbit with the perigee some 3,500 kilometres higher than its original placement.

Doresa’s salvage has been a slow and steady journey since it was placed, with sister satellite Melina, into a fairly useless orbit in August following a launch anomaly. The original orbit, with a 26,000-kilometer apogee and a 13,800-kilometer perigee, prevented their use for navigation services because they were too low during part of their orbit to sense the horizon and correctly determine their own position. They were also getting a daily dose of radiation from the Van Allen belts.

Elevation

The elevation of the satellite started in late October and involved 11 firings of Doresa’s on-board thrusters. The craft now has only 15 kilos left from its original 65 kilo fuel payload but, given the fact that normally Galileo satellites are not required to make regular orbital manoeuvres, ESA engineers estimate this should be enough for a good 12 years of operation in the new orbit.

The next stage will be to repeat this manoeuvre with the second Full Operational Capability (FOC) satellite, Melina, according to a plan to get that into a similar orbit by the New Year. Pending tests of their positioning, navigation, and timing payloads, the two spacecraft are then likely to be able to contribute to the future Galileo navigation constellation. This was confirmed by Didier Faivre, ESA’s director for navigation, during the agency’s ministerial council meeting on December 2 in Luxembourg.

This end result is the best possible scenario given where the satellites were left after launch and is a considerable triumph for ESA’s mission control teams and flight engineers. Doresa is now able to use its Earth sensor continuously and keep its antennae orientated towards the Earth. Despite more than a month’s exposure to the Van Allen radiation, testing so far has shown no ill effects.

“The very good geometry of the satellites in the sky relative to the receivers helped us to achieve this result, plus the signal strength of the fifth satellite,” explained Gustavo Lopez Risueno, coordinating the receiver team at the Navigation Laboratory in ESA’s ESTEC technical centre.

The satellite signals should be usable immediately, in combination with additional navigation message information provided through ground networks, with mass market receivers. In fact the ESTEC Navigation Laboratory, working in conjunction with the European Commission and the European GNSS Agency (GSA), have already performed position fixes with both Galileo and GPS satellites using only navigation-assistance information.

With some adjustments to the Galileo network’s ground infrastructure, it looks like Doresa and Melina will be able to carry out most of the roles they were originally designed to do. They are the first of 22 Galileo FOC satellites to be built by OHB and launched by ESA over the next few years.

Toasted antennae

More good news. The problem with Galileo’s fourth IOV satellite, named Sif, that took it out of action at the end of May seems to have been characterised and — again — indicates that the satellite is not a complete loss to the constellation. While Sif’s E5 and E6 frequency bands are definitively blown, the satellite’s E1 Open Service band should be capable of broadcast.

The problem appears to have been a defective antennae. The four IOV satellites utilise one antennae design, while the FOC satellites have a different design. Fortunately there is no sign of a similar issue with the three other IOV craft, but they have been operating on reduced power as a precaution while the root cause of Sif’s failure is determined. ESA is currently fail-testing an example of the culprit antennae in the laboratory to see if the failure mode can be characterised.

“One of the possible root causes links the problem with the power emitted by the antenna. When we know more we’ll decide what to do with the other three. Since this event occurred in May and June, no more issues have arisen,” Faivre said.

Agreement

This is all a remarkable turnaround and good news for the wider European GNSS community and those stakeholders who have invested in the Galileo programme and its burgeoning application industry. Let’s hope the good fortune continues through 2015.

The administrative side of things is certainly moving on with the signing in October of an agreement which delegates a range of exploitation tasks for Galileo from the European Commission to the GSA, providing a framework and budget for the development of services and operations through to 2021.The signing of the agreement is an initial step towards the full Galileo Exploitation Phase. Current planning calls for this exploitation phase to be progressively rolled out from 2015, with full operability scheduled for 2020.

“With Galileo, we aim to provide a tangible service to European citizens, and this Delegation Agreement ensures we have the tools and funding necessary to achieve this,” said GSA Executive Director Carlo des Dorides. The agreement was signed by Daniel Calleja Crespo of the European Commission and des Dorides. The document specifically sets the actions to be implemented, the amount of funding provided, and the conditions for the overall management.

Innovation

In the same month, the First Satellite Masters Conference took place in Berlin on October 23 and 24. The conference encompassed the 2014 edition of the European Satellite Navigation Competition (ESNC). The event was a great showcase for the innovation, skill, and passion of the entrepreneurs, usually young, who are building the satellite application market in Europe.

For example, the winner of the GSA special prize at ESNC 2014 is developing Galileo modules for the Google Ara modular smartphone concept, a potential game-changer for positioning in the mobile-phone market. Ara uses interchangeable modules to deliver a smartphone that can be whatever a user wants it to be, complete with first- and third-party components including sensors, cameras, radio antennas, and more. Consumers will be able to order them as of January 2015.
Google developers believe an Ara smartphone will last multiple years, much longer than current hardware, since it won’t be obsolete nearly as quickly. Further, Ara could open the smartphone market to billions of new users across the globe.

I spoke with Giovanni Vecchione of Deimos Space, who received the € 40 000 GSA/ESNC prize during the awards ceremony at Deutsche Telekom’s magnificent headquarters in the German capital.

“With a traditional chip structure, all of a smartphone’s functions are currently combined into a single component, which makes it difficult to add or change a function,” explained Giovanni. “With a modular structure, you have the option to simply switch out a component, meaning a smartphone’s capabilities can be easily enhanced.”

Vecchione’s innovation is to use another of Galileo’s unique selling points: the E5 broadband signal. While mass market smartphones will use the E1 signal, the availability of high-end phones offering enhanced accuracy through the use of the E5 signal will appeal to many users. A second module will implement an external antenna interface. Together these developments could deliver an ARA phone offering high precision (centimetre-level accuracy) positioning and multipath-resistant solutions.

Wishing you all a very peaceful and prosperous New Year and hoping Santa has your coordinates accurately entered in his sleigh satnav!

A bientôt, as they say in these parts.

December 19, 2014
Summer — and the Living Ain’t Easy

Summer 2014 will be one that the €6.3 billion (US$8.2 billion) Galileo GNSS programme will need to chalk down to experience and hope to move on from. At the time of my last EAGER column, we were starting to get a hint that one of the four in-orbit Galileo IOV satellites was not functioning. We now know that it has suffered a catastrophic power failure.

And in August, celebrations for a successful launch of the first two Galileo FOC satellites, named Doresa and Milena, quickly went sour when it became clear that they had suffered an anomaly during launch. And a very big anomaly at that.

We are still awaiting the preliminary results from the inquiry set up by the European Space Agency (ESA), the European Commission, and the rocket’s operator Arianespace. It is hoped that the results of the inquiry board will be available at the end of September.

ESA spokesperson Franco Bonacina informs me that on the satellite side, ESA’s teams at the ESOC control centre are investigating the possibility of partially raising or modifying the orbit of the two satellites, which are fully under control and in good health. They are also considering performing some software adaptations on board the spacecraft and at ground station level to try and make them “be seen” as operational satellites and able to provide operational services within the Galileo system. All this is still “work in progress” and it will take a few more weeks to be fully evaluated and put into practice.

So, what went wrong?

In the absence of firm conclusions from the inquiry, the rumour mill has been running at full throttle with the wide range of theories from cock-up to conspiracy.

What we do know is that the Galileo craft were supposed to be launched by a Soyuz-Fregat rocket into a circular orbit 23,222 kilometres above the Earth and angled at 56 degrees to the planet’s equator. The initial launch from Kourou, French Guiana, on August 22 seemed to be smooth and nominal, but something went wrong in the final stages of the flight, and the two satellites were placed in an elliptical orbit varying from more than 2,000 kilometres too high to nearly 10,000 kilometres too low and also tilted by about 5 degrees from the intended plane.

Galileo orbits viewed side-on.

Galileo orbits viewed from above.

The most plausible explanation for the anomaly is that the Soyuz – Fregat upper stage suffered a control malfunction at some point before its final orbital injection burn. So although the rocket engine seems to have fired correctly, the craft wasn’t pointing in the right direction.

In fact, I am told that a likely mechanical root cause for the anomaly in the Fregat stage has been identified by the inquiry committee; however, more information is being gathered and further technical analysis is required to verify this.

Can anything be done?

Doresa and Milena do not have enough fuel on board to achieve the correct orbit for full Galileo operations.

Some interesting solutions have been proposed to launch a rescue mission to drag the errant satellites into their correct orbit, but that could be a slow, risky and expensive exercise. So could the satellites be useful in situ?

For most GNSS uses, the answer is probably no. Despite the fact that the satellites themselves are apparently working perfectly, in a safe state, correctly pointing towards the Sun, properly powered and fully under control of the ESA team, their elliptical orbit does not conform with Galileo’s standardized data format. For example, the value that represents the shape of the satellites’ orbit is too big to be expressed within the allotted bit limit for that parameter.

Marco Falcone, ESA’s Galileo system manager, says his team have been working intensely to determine if the satellites can be at least partially recovered. Among the considerations are the flight dynamics of moving the two spacecraft and the impact of the radiation they are experiencing in their current location, which can shorten the satellite’s lifetime. “It’s very dangerous for the satellite,” admits Falcone.

Another unknown is the timing performance of the satellites’ rubidium frequency and hydrogen maser given the relativistic effects of their orbit. Signal issues, such as the navigation message almanac, also must be considered before the FOC satellites can be introduced into operation, Falcone said.

Good for geoscience?

But according to fellow GPS World contributor Richard Langley of the University of New Brunswick, the situation is more hopeful for scientists wanting to use Galileo-derived data in their research. Quoted in an article in leading science journal Nature, Richard says that researchers tracking GNSS satellites via the IGS global network of ground stations combine that information with the timing data transmitted by the satellites themselves and could use it to measure changes in the position of points on the ground much smaller than the one-metre margin of error for standard navigation-system receivers. This level of precision is good enough to detect millimetres of movement in tectonic plates, for example.

This reminded me of a presentation by a team of Italian scientists I saw recently. The VADASE (Variometric Approach for Displacements Analysis Stand-alone Engine) project uses a novel strategy consisting of an algorithm able to perform real-time retrieval and estimation of displacement and waveforms based on high-frequency (1 Hz or more) carrier phase observations collected by a stand-alone GNSS receiver. The algorithm works with broadcast data (satellite clocks and orbits), requires very simple hardware, and has demonstrated potential application in real-world situations such as earthquake risk assessment (and related early-warning systems for tsunamis) and structural monitoring (see citations below). VADASE had already achieved a Galileo-only displacement solution using the four IOV satellites in orbit.

I contacted Gabriele Colosimo at Rome’s “Sapienza” University, and he confirmed that, although the satellites could not be used for direct gravimetric studies that require a very low orbit (below 1,000 km), the data from Doresa and Milena could be used to estimate displacements of GNSS receivers. He and the VADASE team think that a slight adjustment in their algorithm might be needed depending on the exact orbit parameters of the satellites, but the data would be useable without any significant change in orbit being required.

Gabriele also thinks that the data could be used to usefully contribute to studies in fields such as troposphere studies and GNSS reflectometry, as well as for geodynamic and seismic monitoring using GNSS.

Munich Masters

Hopefully the mystery of Doresa and Milena’s anomaly will have been resolved by October 23, when the 2014 European Satellite Navigation Competition (ESNC) awards ceremony takes place in Berlin in conjunction with the two-day Satellite Masters Conference.

Gabriele and the VADASE team are in the running for a prize — so we wish them well.

But the real prize for the European GNSS community would be a full explanation of the recent Galileo issues, and how they are being resolved, and a clear statement and timeline on the future deployment and implementation of this flagship programme.

A bientôt – as they say in these parts

Citations

G.Colosimo, M. Crespi and A.Mazzoni, “Real-time GPS Seismology with a stand-alone receiver: A preliminary feasibility demonstration,” Journal of Geophysical Research, vol 116, doi: 10.1029/2010JB007941

M. Branzanti, G.Colosimo, M.Crespi and A.Mazzoni, “GPS near-real-time coseismic displacements for the great Tohoku-oki earthquake,” IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters, vol 99, doi: 10.1109/LGRS.2012.2207704

September 29, 2014
Slung Low, Sweet Satellites: Galileo Anomaly Update

The satellite payload fairing pre-launch.

The wording is terse, the intent clear.

“Following the failure on Friday August 22nd to inject Galileo satellites 5 and 6 into the correct orbit, the European Commission has requested Arianespace and the European Space Agency (ESA) to provide full details of the incident, together with a schedule and an action plan to rectify the problem.”

This is the only official face showing, but extremely high levels of activity take place behind the curtain, studying what might have caused several million Euros of hardware to end up much lower above the Earth than desired. Meanwhile, active speculation in the satnav blogosphere provides glimpses of possible outcomes from the latest satellite disaster — not exclusive to Galileo, by any means — created in all likelihood by a malfunction aboard its Soyuz launcher and/or the Fregat upper stage thereof.

The full official EC announcement is available here.

The satellites are under the control of the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC), ESA’s main mission control center in Darmstadt, Germany. But they are far out off position — more than 3,500 kilometers of space away, so far as to make their eventual use as part of the Galileo constellation very unlikely. Discussions continue with ESA and Arianespace regarding whether or not the satellites are likely to be of use, but odds are against it.

Their onboard fuel is not enough to compensate for the launch shortfall to reach higher orbits under their own power. ESA scientists are studying how they might still possibly be used, far from their optimum position,s within the Galileo constellation.

According to an Arianespace press release on August 23, the target orbit was circular, inclined at 55 degrees with a semi-major axis of 29,900 kilometers, but what they got was an elliptical orbit, eccentricity of 0.23, semi-major axis of 26,200 kilometers and inclined at 49.8 degrees.

On August 28, the Russian newspaper Izvestia reported that “The failure of the European Union’s Galileo satellites to reach their intended orbital position was likely caused by software errors in the Fregat-MT rocket’s upper-stage.”

“The nonstandard operation of the integrated management system was likely caused by an error in the embedded software. As a result, the upper stage received an incorrect flight assignment, and, operating in full accordance with the embedded software, it has delivered the units to the wrong destination,” an unnamed source from Russian space Agency Roscosmos was quoted as saying by the newspaper.

An independent inquiry panel has been set up by Ariane. It is headed by former ESA Inspector General Peter Dubock. It starts work on August 28. The panel includes a couple of academics and a majority of ESA and EC figures.

Ferdinando Nelli Feroci,
the new EC Commissioner for Industry and Entrepreneurship.

The new EC commissioner in this area, Ferdinando Nelli Feroci has invited ESA and Arianespace to his study during the first week of September to present the initial results of the inquiry.

The commissioner commented, “The problem with the launch of the two Galileo satellites is very unfortunate. The European Commission will participate in an inquiry with ESA to understand the causes of the incident and to verify the extent to which the two satellites could be used for the Galileo programme. I remain convinced of the strategic importance of Galileo and I am confident that the deployment of the constellation of satellites will continue as planned.”

The commissioner expects that the Galileo constellation will be fully deployed by the end of this decade. This may qualify as optimism because system planners had envisioned for six spares – and three are already blown.

Ariane and ESA did not insure the satellites.

According to back-of-the-envelope calculations, system operators are now one short of the minimum 24 needed for full 24/7 global coverage, as they have 4 IOVs up (1 broken) and 22 FOCs on order (2 launched and now in what could be called a junk orbit) which makes a potential maximum 23 sats that have actually been ordered – one short of the target.

The Satellites Are Alright

Satellite manufacturer OHB Systems of Bremen, Germany, issued a release stating that “Controllers at ESA’s ESOC control centre in Darmstadt, Germany, confirm the good health and the nominal behaviour of both satellites. They are in a safe configuration, are thermally stable, have stable pointing to the sun and sufficient power production. All platform subsystems have been checked and they work properly. Also the procedures to deploy the solar arrays are successfully performed and all solar arrays are properly unfolded.”

Further, “The orbit anomaly has no impact on the production and delivery of the in total further 20 satellites. Two FOC*-satellites are currently at ESTEC test facilities in Noordwijk, the remaining are in various status of integration. ”

Blogging the Boondoggle

The chairman of the Executive Board of the German Aerospace Center, Johann-Dietrich ‘Jan’ Wörner, writes an interesting blog. The current installment opens with a quote from Elon Musk: “Rockets are tricky.”

Wörner goes on to say, “The Soyuz launcher lifted off from the European Spaceport in French Guiana. Initially, all of the measurements suggested a perfect mission; the launcher took off at the scheduled time, followed the prescribed trajectory, and the stage separation was carried out correctly. However, the first problem became apparent when the two satellites proved unable to deploy their solar arrays as intended. A more detailed analysis then revealed that the eccentricity, the altitude and the inclination of the satellites’ orbits with respect to Earth’s equator did not meet the specifications. The upper stage had also evidently failed to induce the planned rotation around the longitudinal axis of the spacecraft (known as ‘barbeque’ mode, designed to maintain favourable thermal conditions during exposure to the Sun).”

Further discussion of the possible causes of the anomaly can be found on a Russian site, which focuses on the Fregat stage thrusters and indicates that the Russians think the barbeque maneuver was completed, and thus not the problem.

The other big issue is how the telemetry didn’t pick up the issue straight away.

There is avid speculation and a number of interesting theories being aired on the Canadian Space Geodesy Forum. For subscriptions to this vital listserv, visit here.

August 28, 2014
EGNOS, European Superiority, and the Need to Get ‘Very, Very Busy’

The European GNSS scene received an early Easter present with the successful launch of two new-generation transponders for the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) satellite-based augmentation system (SBAS). The two geostationary transponders, GEO-2, rose on board the SES ASTRA 5B satellite from the European Space Port in Kourou, French Guiana, on March 22 via an Ariane 5 lifter. The new transponders will provide higher accuracy positioning signals to those citizens and professionals using EGNOS enabled receivers.

Together with the previous transponder replenishment on the SES-5 satellite launched in July 2012, GEO-2 will ensure the continuity and quality of the EGNOS open service and safety-of-life services for the next 15 years. Once validated in orbit, the signals will be introduced in current EGNOS operations and will support the new EGNOS generation (EGNOS V3). EGNOS V3 will provide dual-frequency signals on L1 and L5 bands and augment both GPS and Galileo constellations as part of the Multi-Constellations Regional System (MRS) concept.

EGNOS is currently made up of transponders on board three geostationary satellites (Artemis, Inmarsat 3F2, Inmarsat 4F2), and an interconnected ground network of forty positioning stations and four control centres which cover most of the territory of the European Union. The ASTRA 5B payload for EGNOS will essentially extend transponder capacity and geographical reach over Eastern Europe and neighbouring potential markets.

Europe’s first venture into satellite navigation, EGNOS represents a major stepping-stone towards Galileo. EGNOS improves the accuracy of GPS by providing a positioning accuracy to within three metres together with system integrity messages. The system offers three services: an Open Service that is free of charge; a Safety-of-life Service (SoL) that was certified for civil aviation in 2011; and a Commercial Service – the EGNOS Data Access Service (EDAS) that disseminates EGNOS data in real time.

Since the beginning of 2014 the European GNSS Agency (GSA) has been responsible for the operation and service provision of EGNOS. “The successful launch is an important achievement in view of the enhanced performance that EGNOS will provide both today and in the future,” said Carlo des Dorides, GSA executive director.

EGNOS Extension

Future extension of EGNOS was discussed at the recent Munich Satellite Summit (see below and other articles in this issue of EAGER).

While GSA is now EGNOS exploitation manager, the European Commission is responsible for the overall programme, said Ignacio Alcantarilla Medina, deputy EGNOS project manger at the Commission. With medium-term finances for the service secured, through a budget of € 1,580 million for the period 2014 to 2021, the main aim for service extension was to ensure complete coverage of all EU territories.

“Coverage of Member States is the priority; that is what budget is for,” said Alcantarilla Medina. This essentially means reinforcing coverage in the east of Europe and extreme north and overall increase robustness.

Currently (March 2014) there are 100 EGNOS-enabled LPV procedures for the civil air space published in Europe. During 2014 a further 150 LPV procedures should be completed, he stated.

Once all EU territory is adequately served, then further extension might be possible. International projects in terms of demonstration were being undertaken under the European Commission’s FP7 and Horizon 2020 research programmes and funding for international extensions could come from third party or Commission sponsored development funding.

Interestingly, in the light of recent political events, funding for extension of EGNOS to the Ukraine has already been allocated in the European Commission’s budget by DG Development. Other countries could benefit from this type of funding or from other international development aid. An ambitious flight test campaign over Moldova, Poland, Romania, and Ukraine was carried out in the second quarter of 2013 under the auspices of the EGNOS Extension to Eastern Europe: Applications (EEGS2) project. Full demonstration of EGNOS performances and capabilities was performed flying Instrument Landing System (ILS) overlay procedures and by providing real guidance to the pilots during final approach. In total, 19 flight trials were performed between April and June 2013.

European Showcase at Munich Summit

Perhaps the good EGNOS news created the warm glow bathing the Munich Satellite Summit in late March. While input arrived from all parts of the world and all major satellite navigation programmes — except Russia and GLONASS — the majority of the discussions focused on the European programmes, Galileo/EGNOS and Copernicus/Earth Observation, and thus by extension on European technological accomplishment.

Matthias Petschke, Director of EU Satellite Navigation Programmes at the European Commission proclaimed: “Galileo is a reality. We are on track again!” But he stressed that infrastructure does not automatically generate services, and the focus must now be on service provision. On integration, Petschke emphasised that in most cases services meant applications, and few current applications relied on only one source of data. This meant it was not a question of “whether” for integration, but “what else” can be gained from integration of data.

The big challenge is to transform space infrastructure into commercial service platforms that provide clear benefits to users and society. The introduction of Galileo Early Services, possibly as early as Q4 2014, would herald this move to service platforms and that was when Europe needed to “get very, very busy.”

Galileo Boasts of Superiority. The plenary audience heard repeated statements from leading European figures on the ‘superiority’ of the Galileo system over current GPS satellites. The grinding of teeth from the various U.S. delegates was almost audible on some occasions but, in the spirit of world peace, they deigned to publicly challenge such statements.

Typical was Jean-Jacques Dordain, director-general of ESA, who proclaimed Galileo as a success with technologies much better than GPS. Although he did concede that with 22 satellites still to launch this “was not the end of the process – but a real good start.”

Evert Dudok of Airbus Defence and Space stated, “To develop from scratch a system significantly better than GPS is not easy, but we are creating the best system.” A number of delegates supported this, indicating Galileo’s better-quality code and phase measurement signals that were particularly important for higher-accuracy applications. The excellent, over-specification performance of the initial four in-orbit satellites was often quoted.

From a commercial point of view, Carlo des Dorides of the GSA claimed that effectively the European Union already had a 25 percent share of the sat nav market and that one-third of the existing global receiver base was already Galileo compatible. He saw a great future for the system.

“Galileo is unique compared to other GNSS due to its civil nature,” said des Dorides. And the user was at centre of the system’s evolution, with developments in Galileo moving from technology push to demand pull. The clear role of GSA was to ensure that both Galileo and EGNOS delivered the valuable services they are designed to deliver.

Galileo’s public regulated service (PRS) should be a key factor in growing market share in secure civilian applications with its enhanced ability to counter intentional and unintentional signal interference – another main topic of the Summit. In a dedicated session on combating interference, the introduction of a ‘PRS-lite’ authentification signal on the Galileo open service was mooted, which could be a very interesting development.

The absence of any Russian input to the Munich SatNav Summit — save for a small pile of the unexpectedly glossy GLONASS Herald publication outside the registration hall — brought the chill of geopolitics into the usually apolitical space arena.

Does Augmentation Have a Future?

Another interesting question raised at the Summit – given the near-future fact of four compatible GNSS constellations on station – was whether there will be a role for augmentation systems such as EGNOS and WAAS?

Deborah Lawrence of the FAA was clear that her organisation was working to take advantage of the multi-constellation future and that the role of SBAS might change, but that the FAA is already looking towards what the requirements for SBAS in 2040 might be.

European Commission spokespersons agreed with the need for multi-constellation, globally interoperable SBAS for the foreseeable future, not least because the currently installed receiver base in the aviation sector would likely have a 20-year replacement horizon.______________

Tim Reynolds is director of Inta Communication Ltd. and a long-term Brussels observer writing on many aspects of European government policy and implementation for a range of clients and publications. The material presented here was first prepared in a somewhat different form for the GSA.
He is the contributing editor for GPS World’s new quarterly e-newsletter, EAGER: the European GNSS and Earth Observation Report. Subscribe free at env-gpsworld-integration.kinsta.cloud/subscribe.

March 31, 2014