GALILEO UPDATE

Switzerland to take part in Galileo, EGNOS

The Swiss Federal Council has signed a cooperation agreement with the European Union for Switzerland to participate in the satellite programmes Galileo and EGNOS. Switzerland’s participation would provide it with access to all satellite signals. It will contribute some EUR 27 million or CHF 34 million per year towards costs. www.telecompaper.com

Galileo Achieves First Airborne Tracking

The European Space Agency’s Galileo satellites have achieved their first aerial fix of longitude, latitude and altitude, enabling the inflight tracking of a test aircraft. ESA’s four Galileo satellites in orbit have supported months of positioning tests on the ground across Europe since the first fix in March.

Now the first aerial tracking using Galileo has taken place, marking the first time that Europe has been able to determine the position of an aircraft using only its own independent navigation system. The milestone took place on a Fairchild Metro- II above Gilze-Rijen Air Force Base in the Netherlands at 12:38 GMT on November 12. It was part of an aerial campaign overseen jointly by ESA and the National Aerospace Laboratory of the Netherlands, NLR, with the support of Eurocontrol, the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation, and LVNL, the Dutch Air Navigation Service Provider.

A pair of Galileo test receivers was used aboard the aircraft, the same kind employed for Galileo testing in the field and in labs across Europe.

They were connected to an aeronautical-certified triplefrequency Galileo-ready antenna mounted on top of the aircraft.

Tests were scheduled during periods when all four Galileo satellites were visible in the sky – four being the minimum needed for positioning fixes. The receivers fixed the plane’s position and, as well as determining key variables such as the position, velocity and timing accuracy; time to first fix; signal-to-noise ratio; range error; and range–rate error.

Testing covered both Galileo’s publicly available Open Service and the more precise, encrypted Public Regulated Service, whose availability is limited to governmental entities.

Flights covered all major phases: take off, straight and level flight with constant speed, orbit, straight and level flight with alternating speeds, turns with a maximum bank angle of 60º, pull-ups and pushovers, approaches and landings.

They also allowed positioning to be carried out during a wide variety of conditions, such as vibrations, speeds up to 456 km/h, accelerations up to 2 ghorizontal and 0.5– 1.5 gvertical, and rapid jerks. The maximum altitude reached during the flights were 3000 m.

The definition and development of Galileo’s in-orbit validation phase were carried out by ESA and cofunded by ESA and the EU.