It is a long read and not immediately the End of the Galileo World, but this is bad news indeed:
Galileo satellites experiencing multiple clock failures
A bit of a long read, wade through to the end.
Makes me wonder if the clock manufacturer is rolling all phone calls to voice mail about now....
There's bound to be a lot of people who are ticked... or since it is related to clock failure, NOT ticked...
That's ok, you may need a license to receive Galileo anyway...
http://gpsworld.com/fcc-seeks-public-comments-on-receivers-using-galileo-signals/
Pretty ridiculous...since when do you need a license to RECEIVE a signal?
Someone told me they tried this same thing with Glonass but nothing ever came of it.
Your tax dollars at work. Good thing we have the FCC looking out for us.
What U.S. interest is served by restricting the reception of non-U.S.-originated space signals? I'm having trouble understanding why this restriction was promulgated in the first place.
Could be mid-recollecting but I thought Galileo, like NAVSTAR GPS was intended to provide two levels of service. A free and a for pay service providing additional accuracy.
If I get time, I might see if I can something to support my recollection.
FWIW, years ago attended a presentation by some folks from Boeing who described what would have been a better constellation configuration (for NAVSTAR GPS). The configuration seems to have been adopted for Galileo.
Cheers,
DMM
My understanding was that Galileo was supposed to provide both free and subscription signal services.
This is a good example of what happens when a big disorganized government tries to create something that has no reason to exist, over complicates it, and tries to rush it to the market.
Lee D, post: 409883, member: 7971 wrote: when a big disorganized government tries to create something that has no reason to exist
I don't agree with the "no reason to exist" part. What sovereign government wants to rely on a mission-critical system that's owned and controlled by another government whose interests may not always coincide with its own? It'd be kind of like the U.S. subcontracting space positioning infrastructure to the Russians. What could possibly go wrong?
Jim Frame, post: 409884, member: 10 wrote: I don't agree with the "no reason to exist" part. What sovereign government wants to rely on a mission-critical system that's owned and controlled by another government whose interests may not always coincide with its own? It'd be kind of like the U.S. subcontracting space positioning infrastructure to the Russians. What could possibly go wrong?
You have a valid point. However, the development of something like Galileo is a massive and burdensome scientific and financial undertaking. Most of the countries involved in it are NATO members so I never really understood the reticence to rely on something that the US already provides for free, as does Russia.
Jim Frame, post: 409884, member: 10 wrote: I don't agree with the "no reason to exist" part. What sovereign government wants to rely on a mission-critical system that's owned and controlled by another government whose interests may not always coincide with its own? It'd be kind of like the U.S. subcontracting space positioning infrastructure to the Russians. What could possibly go wrong?
At least we can rest easy since the US has control of the most important infrastructure,,,the Internet............opps!!...:eek:
The FCC has to roar on occasion and put the frequencies in review of assets they can place on the auction block.
When the frequency is broadcast or used above an uncertain amount of watts, they require license for the equipment.
I may be wrong, but I believe that the ongoing GPS modernization - L5, new robust civilian code, etc. - when fully implemented will make everything else irrelevant.
I read a paper that stated that with L5 instantaneous ambiguity fixes at 40 Km will be achievable.
I wonder if the EU has the ability to repair satellites in orbit like our astronauts do, or if they have a contingency for hiring US Astronauts or Russian Cosmonauts to make repairs.
It seems like they would want to keep something like that in-house, but I don't know if they have the capability.
Shawn Billings, post: 410077, member: 6521 wrote: I wonder if the EU has the ability to repair satellites in orbit like our astronauts do
A quick search suggests that we no longer do on-orbit SV repairs. I get the sense that on-orbit repair was shown to be very expensive, so much so that it was cheaper to build and launch a replacement. A discussion can be found here, though I don't claim that it's authoritative.
I may be totally wrong, but I think in orbit repair can only happen at lower altitude, at least from the ISS. Seems to me it would be prohibitively expensive to send a mission up to that orbital altitude to fix something.
Some Galileo news. Still not much more info in there though.