GNSS

Safran’s White Rabbit outperforms alternative PNT industry requirements

White Rabbit, an essential solution in Safran’s Navigation & Timing portfolio for critical infrastructure, recently received high praise in a landmark report from the European Commission (EC) Joint Research Center (JRC) to evaluate the effectiveness of Alternative Positioning, Navigation and Timing platforms.

For more than eight months, the commission studied a variety of available solutions to assess the performance of Alternative-PNT demonstration platforms in a variety of situations where there is signal loss and a backup system is necessary. The selected solutions were evaluated for precise and robust timing and positioning services in challenging indoor and outdoor environments. Time transfer technologies over different means, including fiber, wired channels, etc.

Safran’s White Rabbit is a high-accuracy time and frequency distribution protocol, which combines Precise Time Protocol (PTP) packets with the frequency base of Synchronous Ethernet (SyncE) to provide sub-nanosecond time transfer accuracy over an optical fiber. While the results of the test campaign showed that all Alternative-PNT platforms under evaluation demonstrated performances in compliance with the requirements set, White Rabbit excelled in its performance. Safran demonstrated not only White Rabbit’s ultra-accurate time transfer over fiber optics but also its high-performance time generation, resiliency (based on failover and holdover), interoperability, and user-friendly monitoring capabilities. https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu

Galileo second generation enters full development phase

On May 31, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced the main procurement batch of Galileo Second Generation (G2), initiated in summer 2022, has been finalized. The system is now ready for its on-orbit validation development phase.

Satellite-building contracts were awarded in May 2021 to Thales Alenia Space and Airbus Defence and Space to create two independent families of satellites amounting to 12 G2 satellites in total. Separate contracts were also awarded to Safran Electronics and Defence-Navigation and Timing and Leonardo to provide the ultraprecise atomic clocks carried aboard.

In addition, G2’s fully digital payloads are being designed to be easily reconfigured on orbit, enabling them to respond to the evolving needs of users with novel signals and services. www.esa.int

New Galileo sensor station operating in South Pacific

The newest addition to the network of Galileo sensor stations (GSS) is up and running in Wallis and Futuna, a French territory in the South Pacific. It enables increased Galileo coverage in the southern hemisphere. The European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) reported that the decision for the new station was made in June 2020; however, due to COVID-19, its deployment did not begin until summer 2022. In October 2022, the second mission to Wallis and Futana took place to complete the deployment and connect the station to the ground mission segment network for data collection. The GSS is a network of antennas deployed at remote locations around the world. They have small, omnidirectional receiving antennas 50 cm high that check the accuracy and signal quality of individual satellites and pinpoint current satellite orbits. Establishing GSS is difficult and requires security accreditation by EUSPA’s Security Accreditation Board. To make the best use of the Galileo services, users rely on more than just the satellites. www.euspa.europa.eu

EUSPA EO and GNSS Market Report

This first issue of the EO and GNSS Market Report provides insights into how EO and GNSS contribute to a plethora of applications across a total of 17 market segments, followed by an additional Editor’s Special focus on Innovative Solutions for Health.

Facing global challenges such as the digital revolution, climate change and pandemics threatening the economy at a worldwide scale, society – more than ever – relies on innovative solutions to deal with the big data paradigm, respond to and mitigate natural and man-made disasters, curb the spread of deadly diseases and strengthen a global supply chain that underpins our daily lives. EO and GNSS will play a vital role in contributing to these innovative solutions through dozens of applications that are emerging or already in use by citizens, governments, international organisations, NGOs, industry, academia and researchers around the world. Between 2021 and 2031, annual shipments of GNSS receivers are forecasted to grow from 1.8billion units to2.5billion units. Theseshipments will be heavily dominated by the Consumer Solutions, Tourism and Health segment following the wave of global smartphone and wearable sales that contribute to roughly 92% of global shipments.

Consequently, the global installed base of GNSS devices in use is expected to reach over 10 billion units by 2031. Here again a dominant role is set aside for the mass market segments of Consumer Solutions, Tourism and Health and Road and Automotive, which will contribute the lion’s share of 98% of all devices in use. The global GNSS downstream market revenues, covering both device sales and service-related revenues, is expected to grow at a CAGR of 9.2% over the next decade, reaching a total of €492 billion by 2031. Over 82% of these revenues will be generated by value-added services (i.e. €405 billion in 2031). Besides the dominance of the aforementioned mass market segments, the professional markets of (i) Agriculture, (ii) Urban Development and Cultural Heritage, and (iii) Infrastructure will be the main contributors to the global GNSS revenue stream.

In terms of demand, the Asia-Pacific region continues to dominate the GNSS revenues market both for device and services revenues (i.e. 36% and 40% of the global share respectively in 2021). Whilst the region is expected to increase its share of the global services revenues, nearing 46% by 2031, Asia-Pacific will see a decline of its market share of device revenues (expected to drop to 28%). In this area, the region will be challenged by the upcoming markets of South America & Caribbean, Non-EU27 Europe and the Middle East & Africa regions.

With revenues set to double from roughly €2.8 billion to over €5.5 billion over the next decade, the market for Earth Observation applications is boosted by a large pool of value-added services (i.e. 85% of global revenue). These contribute across all segments, though especially in those of Climate Services, Urban Development and Cultural Heritage, Agriculture, Energy and Raw Materials and the Insurance and Finance segment. When it comes to the sale of EO data (worth €0.8 billion in 2031, 15% of global revenue), the top five of segments is made up of Urban Development and Cultural heritage, Agriculture, Insurance and Finance, Energy and Raw Materials as well as Consumer Solutions, Tourism and Health.

Despite a relatively small market share in 2021 (i.e. 5% or €145 million), the Insurance and Finance segment – boosted by the growing use of parametric insurance products in the context of disaster resilience frameworks by commercial entities in areas with high exposure to extreme events–will increase its uptake of EO data and value-added services over the decade, pushing the Insurance and Finance segment to a forecasted €1 billion EO-enabled revenues by 2031 (constituting an 18% market share). From a supply perspective, the EO market is jointly led by the United States of America and Europe with market shares of 42% and 41% respectively. Europe plays a leading role in the market of Analysis, Insights and Decision Support (the subset of value-added services closest to end- users) with a 50% market share covering all segments, contributing to its overall market share above. Although challenged by US companies in the mature Agriculture market and the growing Insurance and Finance segment, European companies lead the market across almost all other segments, excluding the Emergency Management and Humanitarian Aid segment (led by Asian companies with 52%) and the niche EO market of Road and Automotive (led by US companies with 77%).

Based on the latest European Association of Remote Sensing Companies (EARSC) Industry Survey, SMEs and start-ups account for more than 93% of European EO companies, showcasing the importance of small companies for the European EO economy. As presented throughout this report, the flagship EU Space Programme – driven in tandem by Galileo and EGNOS on one side and Copernicus on the other – has become a major enabler in the downstream space application market. www.euspa.europa.eu