Galileo Initial Services Now Restored

The European GNSS Agency (GSA) has announced that the Galileo Initial Services have now been restored. Commercial users can already see signs of recovery of the Galileo navigation and timing services, although some fluctuations may be experienced until further notice.

The technical incident originated from an equipment malfunction in the Galileo ground infrastructure, affecting the calculation of time and orbit predictions which are used to compute the navigation message. The malfunction affected different elements of on-the-ground facilities.

A team composed of GSA experts, industry, ESA and the European Commission has been working together round the clock to address the incident. The team is monitoring the quality of Galileo services to restore Galileo timing and navigation services at their nominal levels. GSA will set up an Independent Inquiry Board to identify the root causes of the major incident. This will allow the European Commission, as the programme manager, together with GSA to draw lessons for the management of an operational system with several millions of users worldwide.

Full operational phase

Galileo has been providing ‘initial services’ since December 2016. During this initial ‘pilot’ phase preceding the ‘full operational services’ phase, Galileo signals are used in combination with other satellite navigation systems, which allows for the detection of technical issues before the system becomes fully operational. In the full operational phase, Galileo should function independently of other satellite navigation systems.

Dedicated Notice Advisory to Galileo Users (NAGUs) have been published at the European GNSS Service Centre to inform users on the service impact:

• NAGU number 2019025 on 2019-07-11 14:45 on the potential service degradation;

• NAGU number 2019026 on 2019-07-13 20:15 on the service outage;

• NAGU number 2019027 on 2019-07-18 08:20 on the service recovery;

as well as news items on the GIM International website on 15 July and 17 July.

Source: European GNSS Agency (GSA).