Galileo Update

Septentrio and QinetiQ partnership delivers first

Galileo PRS signal reception Septentrio and QinetiQ, working in close partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA) and their industrial partners, achieved the world’s first successful reception of the encrypted Galileo Public Regulated Service (PRS) signal from the first Galileo satellites (launched in November 2011).

The signal was received on the Galileo PRS Test User Receiver (PRS-TUR) jointly developed by Septentrio and QinetiQ under an ESA contract. For the reception test, the receiver was installed in the Galileo Control Centre in Fucino, Italy and operated by technical experts from ESA.

From the lecture hall to the board room

The University Challenge – part of the European Satellite Navigation Competition (ESNC) 2012 – invites students and research assistants from any field of study to show off their innovative business ideas. These ideas can propose new potential uses for satellite navigation in virtually any area – from logistics and healthcare all the way to mobile apps. The ESNC has been searching for the best application ideas for GNSS such as GPS or Galileo every year since 2004. To bridge the gap present in this field between the worlds of academia and business, the University Challenge was introduced as a new special prize category in the 2010 iteration of the competition. The winner of the ESNC University Challenge will receive EUR 1,000 through the FP7 project GENIUS (GNSS Education Network for Industry and Universities).

www.galileo-masters.eu

Galileo passes inorbit signal test

The first two in-orbit validation vehicles (IOV) in Europe’s Galileo satellite navigation system have passed key tests. Spaceopal, the joint venture managing the mission confirmed that the encrypted signals that will provide Galileo’s Public Regulated Service, have been received and validated, a key stage in the verification of the hardware design and services.

www.fl ightglobal.com

UK Satellite Navigation Competition launched

A competition to find innovative every day applications for satellite navigation data has been launched. The European Satellite Navigation Competition (ENSC) wants entrants to come up with new ideas for satellite navigation data in technologies like smartphone applications and location-based services. The ENSC aims to commercialise the new ideas and drive growth in the fast-growing space sector, which the government predicts could become a GBP 40bn industry by 2030, generating up to 100,000 new hi-tech jobs.

http://eandt.theiet.org