Galileo update

Galileo ground segment keeps constellation on track

Galileo’s initial services have been running for more than 15 months now, and signals from the satellites in space are routinely serving users all across the world. The functioning of Galileo is dependent on a global network of ground stations.

The constellation in orbit is only one element of the overall satellite navigation system – the tip of the Galileo iceberg. At the same time as satellites were being built, tested and launched, a global ground segment has been put in place, extending to some of the world’s loneliest places, from Svalbard in the High Arctic to stormengulfed Jan Mayen Island, Ascension Island in the Mid Atlantic to Noumea in the South Pacific, Kerguelen in the southern Indian Ocean to Troll base in the Antarctic interior.

Among the latest developments are updated control and mission software for the two Galileo control centres that sit at the heart of this global web: Fucino in Italy generates the accurate navigation messages that are then broadcast through the navigation payloads, and Oberpfaffenhofen in Germany controls the constellation of satellites. A new telemetry, tracking and command station last year arose in Papeete on Tahiti, in the South Pacific.

Establishing Galileo’s ground segment was among the most complex developments ever undertaken by ESA, having to fulfill strict levels of performance, security and safety. Formal responsibility for the operations of this Galileo ground segment was last year passed to ESA’s partner organization, the European Global Navigation Satellite System Agency, or GSA, but ESA continues to be in charge of its maintenance and growth.

Users don’t have to worry about this ground segment, but it is essential to keeping Galileo services running reliably. The atomic clocks aboard the satellites are accurate to a few nanoseconds, delivering metrescale positioning precision, but they are prone to drift over time.

Similarly, the orbits of the satellites can be slightly nudged by the gravitational tug of Earth’s slight equatorial bulge and by the Moon and Sun. Even the slight but continuous push of sunlight itself can affect satellites in their orbital paths. The quality of signals received on the ground can be affected by their transit through the ever-changing ionosphere, the electrically active outer layer of Earth’s atmosphere.

Galileo sensor stations, with small omnidirectional receiving antennas around just 50 cm high, are on place around the globe to check the accuracy and signal quality of individual satellites in real time, and work together to pinpoint the current satellite orbits.