View Full Version : EU to award Galileo satellite-navigation contracts
drambuster
7th Jan 2010, 06:18
Good news for GPS trekkies:
BBC News - EU to award Galileo satellite-navigation contracts (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8442090.stm)
Don't you just love the Euro-bollox-spin....
To keep Galileo alive, EU member-states had to agree to fund the entire project from the public purse. What should have cost European taxpayers no more than 1.8bn euros will now probably cost them in excess of 5bn euros. Indeed.... they are forgetting one tiny small thing: the Americans did all this about 20 years ago
The EU's continued commitment to the project despite severe budgetary and management failings is based on the belief that huge returns to the European economy will accrue from the investment. How would this work? The American system is free :ugh:
Already, GPS is said to have spawned global markets that are worth several tens of billions of euros annually. That's because the Americans did it many years ago and everybody has been using their system for free.
The new European constellation is expected to deepen and extend those markets as sat-nav functionality becomes ubiquitous in consumer devices such as mobile phones. How so? The American system is free and everybody is using it already, and they are launching new sats with higher power, etc...
But hang on, there isn't a single phone with GPS right now, is there? So Galileo will really make that fantastic development possible. Got to give these people credit where it is due! Their due diligence is astonishing. It's a bit like Eurocontrol, who still worry about 10,000 VLJs crowding European airspace.
:yuk:
Captain Smithy
7th Jan 2010, 09:23
Similar thoughts here IO. I don't quite understand why Europe sees fit to launch yet another GPS system which isn't needed... there again it's probably a sort of political statement from the emerging United States Of Europe :hmm:
bjornhall
7th Jan 2010, 09:39
Meanwhile, you get the odd comment every now and then from Americans about how they provide this service to everyone else for free, paid for by American tax payers' money... Having such a tremendously important global infrastructure as a single entity controlled and paid for by a single country is a tad worrying.
Its more advanced technology should give users quicker, more reliable fixes, and enable them to locate their positions with an error of one metre compared with the current GPS error of several metres.
Would this allow precision approaches using the Galileo system directly, without using something like WAAS?
How so? The American system is free and everybody is using it already, and they are launching new sats with higher power, etc...
Risk of monopolistic supplier? Do we really want all our satnav to be dependent upon the whims of one country?
There is no real difference in accuracy of the two systems. I gather that Galileo will be emitting at a higher power but then so will the new US GPS constellation which emits on both L1 and L2. More power is always handy (a better S/N ratio does improve the accuracy) but it's not really relevant operationally in the retail / aviation market where GPS accuracy already far exceeds the requirements.
One problem is there are no "retail" L2 receivers and none in aviation. I think everybody is waiting for the full L2 constellation to be up before doing anything. And then America with L2 will lead the market because everybody doing the chips will go for L2. I fitted a satphone+GPS antenna and had the option of L1, or L1+L2 but with reduced satphone gain, and went for the L1-only version.
WAAS/EGNOS is required equally by both systems if you want precision GPS approaches. Galileo offers zilch on that front.
Worth looking at the history a bit. What is worrying were Galileo's plans to charge for a "better quality" signal e.g. as required for precision GPS approaches. At one time, things looked pretty scary: Europe was not going to allow GPS approaches unless using Galileo, and they were going to sell you the decryption keys so you could fly the approaches. This was utterly barmy but one could not 100% rule it out. They eventually climbed down - after some "study" "found" that having the decryption key subscription expiring just as you are about to fly the approach might be a safety hazard :ugh: The sheer stupidity of the people in this project is truly pushing the boundaries of human stupidity (or perhaps the most cynical EU budget / gravy train manipulation).
So we have a scenario where the EU was going to totally rip people off for using Galileo, and only grudgingly climbed down from that amind bizzare claims of "100,000 jobs being created by Galileo" (a claim on their website), and we have the USA with a free system, on which the USA depends economically to a massive degree, and the USA is making some noises about charging for it.
What do you think is more likely: America screwing the world (and itself) by messing with the existing system, or Europe screwing itself only (because almost everybody in the world will continue using the US GPS)? I don't think America will screw around with GPS.
The "WW3" scenario is totally different; in that case both systems will be turned off together. There will be secret agreements to do that - otherwise the Americans will shoot down the Galileo satellites and they will be fully entitled to do that. And GA will be banned on day 1 of any hostilities - just like it was in WW2. So no concern for us there :)
For Galileo, the ship left the port about 10 years ago and these days nobody in aviation (users, or regulators) gives a damn about Galileo. GPS approaches and coming in (very slowly but they are) and one day we will have precision ones too with EGNOS. These all use the US GPS. Galileo will be an irrelevance, but the EU will build the system anyway for political reasons.
IIRC, the EU eventually agreed to make the Galileo satellites compatible with the US ones, so the two constellations will mesh together. That's reasonable but the EU claims about valuable market creation are 100% bollox.
And then there's always GLONASS.....
mm_flynn
7th Jan 2010, 16:01
Risk of monopolistic supplier? Do we really want all our satnav to be dependent upon the whims of one country?I guess the question is how many billions of Euros are you willing to pay to avoid that. It's not like there is any shortage of money to spend on ego projects :}
what next
7th Jan 2010, 16:38
Hi!
WAAS/EGNOS is required equally by both systems if you want precision GPS approaches. Galileo offers zilch on that front.
If I understand it correctly, their CS ("commercial service") includes that and is aimed primarily at aviation. Thats what the internet tells me, at least.
And yes, I think that we need Galileo. The decomissioning of traditional navaids has long started and GPS approaches into GA airfields become more and more common practise. And all this shall depend on a single satellite system? Without any redundancy built into it? A nightmare, if you ask me, that will result in an (aviation) world that will be completely dependent of the United States and their goodwill.
Therfore I think that Galileo is money well spent, additionally securing jobs in our aerospace and electronics industry that would need to be subsidised anyway if we don't want to fall behind everybody else.
Greetings, Max
A and C
7th Jan 2010, 16:45
For the EEC to fund Galileo is just the Eurocrats jerking off in the face of the other avalble systems, it is a political willie waggeling exercise not a practical cost effective way to provide a pan Europan R-NAV system.
Why on earth are we not using a mix of GPS, Loran-C and VOR/DME to provide European R-NAV?
The whole of Europe has reasonable VOR/DME coverage, Loran-C is installed and providing a fix that is good to about 30M in the UK.
Most GPS units will take a Loran-C input in RS232 format so what is the problem?
About 15 years back Narco had the NS9000 on the market that used all the above inputs to provide R-NAV. The NS9000 would do much more than GNS430 in terms of navigation, Ok it did not have the moving map but in terms of system redundency it is still way ahead of the Garmin and all at a lower price!
It seems to me that we are spending far too much money to in replacing systems that are already installed and working with a golbal system to rival the USA when we should just be making sure that we have R-NAV in europe if the GPS system fails.
Galileo still needs augumentation (EGNOS) for precision GPS approaches. It won't deliver anything the US system doesn't deliver now, in practical terms.
And yes, I think that we need Galileo. The decomissioning of traditional navaids has long started and GPS approaches into GA airfields become more and more common practise. And all this shall depend on a single satellite system? Without any redundancy built into it? A nightmare, if you ask me, that will result in an (aviation) world that will be completely dependent of the United States and their goodwill.What redundancy do you have for an ILS or VOR approach?
You depend on a single system, and on the goodwill of the airport/navaid owner to not turn it off :) At my local airport, the DME was faulty for many months, preventing (in theory anyway) from some approach types being flown.
There is no practical way for the USA to deny GPS coverage to everybody else, without crippling itself at the same time.
Therfore I think that Galileo is money well spent, additionally securing jobs in our aerospace and electronics industry that would need to be subsidised anyway if we don't want to fall behind everybody else.I don't see these jobs. The technology is straightforward. The sats will be launched on existing vehicles. The number of people working on the system is miniscule.
It is one thing to have more sats - the more the merrier - but to claim that it will create an economic stimulus has zero support.
Unless the EU creates applications which are legally mandatory but which are artificially crippled to work only with some Galileo-only signal which required paid-for decryption keys. You can always create bogus applications like that and then claim how much money the system is making. This was their plan for aviation but they dropped that. They still plan to do something on road charging... remains to be seen whether this is just another white elephant, easily defeated by disabling the GPS antenna :)
what next
7th Jan 2010, 17:24
Hi!
What redundancy do you have for an ILS or VOR approach?
I fly to a different airfield and use their ILS...
But As it is now, without GPS I won't fly at all. "My" Citation has a GPS based FMS which is a no-go item in case it can not provide a postion on the ground. Because B-RNAV capability is now a requirement to use our airspace for IFR flying. We usually fly all across Europe without overflying a single VOR. Most airways are "biult" along RNAV waypoints. Which can no longer be defined by VOR radials and DME distances (and we have no way of entering those into our system anyway).
The only alternative would be INS but the units are still way too expensive. And we regularily fly to destinations that have only GPS (non-precision) approaches. With all underlying former NDBs and VORs long withdrawn. So if tomorrow the US decide to switch off GPS for a while (or someone else switches it off for them) as a result most of the (executive) GA fleet will be grounded.
Regarding Loran-C: There is no such thing in continental Europe. And the precision is insuffient for instrument approaches.
Greetings, Max
A and C
8th Jan 2010, 08:27
Unfortunatly you are correct about the withdrawal of Loran C, it is just a pitty that some of the web sites are still showing the coverage areas.
But it is typical of the EEC to shut down a system so that they can launch a european GPS that just duplicates the American system........
That is what they call redundancy.
and it seems the EU is not the only one thinking Loran C has had its time.
The Department of Homeland
Security (DHS), United States Coast
Guard (USCG), announces the
availability of the Record of Decision
(ROD) to decommission the USCG
Loran-C Program and terminate
transmission of the North American
Loran-C Radionavigation Signal. The
ROD is supported by the Final
Programmatic Environmental Impact
Statement (PEIS) addressing the future
of the USCG Loran-C Program. The
Final PEIS availability was announced
by the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) on June 12, 2009 (74 FR 28046).
DATES: The Final PEIS and ROD are now
available in the docket. The USCG
intends to begin termination of the
broadcast of the North American Loran-
C Radionavigation Signal beginning on
or about February 8, 2010. Loran
stations are expected to cease
transmitting the Loran-C
radionavigation signal by October 1,
2010.
sternone
8th Jan 2010, 09:45
I hope that will bring XM weather into my cockpit. Now I have dialup with the satellite phone!!
Zero chance of getting a weather downlink this way.
Satphones will be the only way in Europe, and the service will never be cheap enough for the vast majority of pilots.
This (http://www.ssf.fi/pages/index.php?fid=24&pid=4) is an interesting summary of the "GPS future". Lots more satellites. It's little wonder that ground based nav systems are not seen to have much of a future.
worrab
8th Jan 2010, 15:13
They still plan to do something on road charging... remains to be seen whether this is just another white elephant, easily defeated by disabling the GPS antenna
<PARANOIA>
I suspect that this is the money-spinner. The only way to meet EU car emissions rules is to have an ECU driving the engine, so all new cars have one. Legislation will be introduced to require that all new cars have a sat road-pricing box installed that is linked to the ECU and the driver's ID card. Absence of signal will disable the engine. It will also mean that "they" can ration - or more likely, tax - fuel, miles or whatever else car-related. It will also be proposed as a pre-requisite for road-trains and ultimately the requirement to enter a drive plan specifying destination and times so that the master computer can synchronise road entry and minimise pollution by having overall control of speed & journey timing - and ultimately whether the journey is permitted.
</PARANOIA>
But that would be impossible wouldn't it?
<PARANOIA>
I suspect that this is the money-spinner. The only way to meet EU car emissions rules is to have an ECU driving the engine, so all new cars have one. Legislation will be introduced to require that all new cars have a sat road-pricing box installed that is linked to the ECU and the driver's ID card. Absence of signal will disable the engine. It will also mean that "they" can ration - or more likely, tax - fuel, miles or whatever else car-related. It will also be proposed as a pre-requisite for road-trains and ultimately the requirement to enter a drive plan specifying destination and times so that the master computer can synchronise road entry and minimise pollution by having overall control of speed & journey timing - and ultimately whether the journey is permitted.
</PARANOIA>
But that would be impossible wouldn't it?
You shouldn't be worried about this. Low power RFID tags placed within your body...now that's something to be paranoid about.
Meanwhile, you might wonder which agency is receiving a download of user-generated TomTom/SatNav data (in the UK) and how it's going to be used.
bjornhall
8th Jan 2010, 18:32
But that would be impossible wouldn't it?
Of course. In a democracy, such a thing could only happen if "we, the people" wanted it.
...right? :sad:
You shouldn't be worried about this. Low power RFID tags placed within your body...now that's something to be paranoid about.
Only if you're foolish enough to go out without your tinfoil hat! :ok:
But that said, I still think the Galileo is a good system to implement. The satellite timing and positioning infrastructure is far too important to depend on one system only. With two or three systems providing similar services you do not have to make guesses on which system you consider more reliable or less likely to be tinkered with (i.e., if you trust the American "people", the Russian "people" or the European "people" the most... ;)). You just use the system that happens to work best at the time.