Galileo To Be Europe's Answer To US GPS 402
judgecorp writes "Two Galileo satellites that will signify the start of the European Union's answer to the American Global Positioning System will be launched into orbit on Thursday aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket. It's using Soyuz because it is cheaper than the French Ariane — and the satellite system is supposed to free Europe from dependence on a U.S.-controlled positioning system."
Re:Launching from Kourou (Score:2, Informative)
Actually, the Soyuz launch pad is 20km West of the Ariane launch pad, in Sinnamary.
CNES' web site about the event: http://www.cnes.fr/web/CNES-fr/4108-soyouz-en-guyane.php
Photo set: http://www.flickr.com/photos/esa_events/sets/72157627767903603/show/
Re:For such a vital system. (Score:5, Informative)
About redundancy, note that 2 other positioning systems are currently deployed :
Chinese Beidou : https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Beidou_navigation_system [wikimedia.org]
Russian GLONASS : https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/GLONASS [wikimedia.org]
Re:Duke Nukem forever has arrived (Score:5, Informative)
OK, I'm a European and not massively fond of the US military, but I am going to take exception to this.
The Galileo *civilian* band originally overlapped with the US *military* band. In other words, you could buy an over the counter device that could guide a weapon to a specific grid reference in an area the US was fighting a war. Remember the rocket forces Hezbollah were able to deploy against Israel? Imagine that with GPS targetting that you can't jam without blinding your own forces.
The US asked ESA to pretty-please-with-sugar-on-top not make consumer devices that had dual uses killing US servicemen. ESA said 'ooh, go on you old rascal' and moved the band.
Now, the situation is that both Navstar (the actual name for US GPS; GPS is just the generic name for such a system) and Galileo have civilian and military bands that don't overlap. Either the US and Europe can jam each others signals, completely, without affecting their own military band. Just as the US can achieve exclusive GPS access in Iraq and Afghanistan, France can do just the same when it unilaterally intervenes in one of its old African colonies.
All the change did was move us from a situation where we were screwing the Americans with our network, to one where we have equal power to screw each others network. This doesn't seem massively unreasonable of the US to ask for.
Re:Good news, bad news, worse news (Score:5, Informative)
Bad news - this likely won't mean it gets a lock on its position any quicker, due to technical reasons. Essentially, the device has to listen for a few seconds to receive the complete signal.
Worse news - each network will require its own proprietary chip, so increased access to GPS networks will come with increased cost, complexity, heat and power issues.
Good news -- you have been misinformed. Single chip GPS/Galileo IC with sub-1-second acquisition [prnewswire.co.uk] and similar power usage to current GPS-only chips.
Re:For such a vital system. (Score:2, Informative)
Full precision has been in place for quite some time. I was one of the GPS operators (SSO) that basically began the process of this back in the mid-90s. This is total BS because the EU is going broke fast and they want to launch a billion dollar+ program (yes, Euro billion plus, whatever) for duplication? Not buying it. GLONASS is different because they don't pretend to be our friends. Their system declined due to funding, but now they have the money again. GLONASS birds launched in the 90s were garbage. While our Block 1's intended for 3 year usage were hitting a decade in life (SVN3 hit 13 years when the electrical system could no longer sustain it through eclipse season), their's were barely hitting design life.
Re:For such a vital system. (Score:5, Informative)
For the comments, "We can shoot them down." Completely irresponsible. It's like saying, "If we want to destroy their bridge, we can just Nuke it." If you destroy a satellite, that position in space becomes unusable due to debris for centuries. We're not going to do it. This is why we were very angry with the Chinese for testing ASAT awhile back. Completely unnecessary and very irresponsible. We don't test GBU's on busy highways in the middle of urban cities (unless you include Iraq, but I kid).
Re:For such a vital system. (Score:4, Informative)
Fact remains that GPS is controlled by the US (military) and that restrictions are in place for civilian usage as far as accuracy, speed and altitude are concerned. I also still remember quite clearly that during the Iraq war all GPS receivers in Europe were off by about 100m at some point. I do not think that was an accident.
As far as shooting down GPS satellites is concerned: according to Wikipedia that completely irresponsible comment was a threat made by US officials:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_(satellite_navigation)#Tension_with_the_United_States [wikipedia.org]
Re:For such a vital system. (Score:5, Informative)
As much as GWB is everyone's new devil pariah most-loathed person, he can't rewire satellites already in space. And before you quote me Wiki again, no the space shuttle can't go out to 11,000 miles to do an upgrade. It's A) No longer flying B) Not capable of going even close to that distance.
Ignore every movie you've ever saw about space. We don't "flick stuff off and on" at a whim. We don't reposition satellites real time, at least not GPS, DSP, DMSP, or EHF (Milstar) birds. Spy satellites are even harder since they're in a highly elliptical orbit which is travelling at exceptionally high speeds when it's at perigee (the nearest point, which is usually where they're spying on). It's a matter of physics.
We've had many terrorist attacks since SA was turned off: Khobar Towers, USS Cole, 9/11, etc. Still off and no degradation.