Good news for the future

[+MazdaRoy]

Europe is finally set to begin the rollout of its long-awaited satellite navigation system, Galileo

 

Two spacecraft will ride to orbit atop a Soyuz rocket from French Guiana.

 

The pair incorporate next-generation technologies that should deliver more precise timing and location data than the current American GPS network.

 

But Galileo is still years away from full operation. A further 28 satellites will be needed to complete its orbiting constellation.

 

So far, the European Commission (EC), which initiated the project, has purchased only 18 satellites. These will fly between now and early 2015.

 

Lift-off for the Soyuz is timed for 07:34 local time (10:34 GMT; 11:34 BST).

 

The event will have double significance because it will mark the first time that the Russian rocket has operated from Western territory. The vehicles normally fly from the Baikonur and Plesetsk spaceports, in Kazakhstan and northern Russia respectively.

 

The European Space Agency (Esa) has acted as the EC's technical agent on Galileo, leading the procurement of the satellites.

 

Its director-general, Jean-Jacques Dordain, admitted to having some eve-of-launch nerves.

 

"I've always said that a rocket is a complex machine and even though the Soyuz is the world's most reliable launcher, I will be pleased to get past Thursday," he told BBC News. "A launch is always an achievement."

 

The Soyuz will put the two Galileo spacecraft at an altitude of 23,222km, where they will circle the globe every 14 hours on a path inclined 56 degrees to the equator. Together with two additional platforms to be launched next year, they will test and validate the Galileo system end-to-end.

 

Assuming no major flaws are found, 14 further spacecraft will then be despatched in twos and fours to take the network to the provisional operating constellation of 18.

 

Compared with GPS, Galileo carries more precise atomic clocks - the heart of any sat-nav system. In theory, the data transmitted by Galileo should be significantly better than its American counterpart. Whereas a position fixed by the publicly availably GPS signal might have an error of about 10m, Galileo's errors should be on the scale of a metre or so.

 

But the systems will be interoperable, meaning the biggest, most obvious benefit to users will simply be the fact that they can see more satellites in the sky.

 

So, as the decade progresses and the number of spacecraft in orbit increases, the performance of all sat-nav devices should improve. Fixes should be faster and more reliable, even in testing environments such as big cities where tall buildings will often obscure a receiver's view of the transmitting spacecraft.

 

Few people perhaps recognise the full extent of GPS usage today. It is not just drivers on the roads who rely on it - banks employ GPS time to stamp global financial transactions; telecommunications and computer networks, and electricity grids are synchronised on the "ticks" of its orbiting atomic clocks.

 

"I am convinced not only that Europe needs Galileo but the whole needs it, too," said Mr Dordain. "More and more services are based on navigation signals. To have two or even three constellations would therefore make these services more accurate and more robust."

 

The Future

[+drsolly]

I look forward to seeing no more caches with coords 100 meters out.

[+Teacosies]

Failed to take off today, another setback.

[+HouseOfDragons]

Failed to take off today, another setback.

 

Someone hid the ignition keys in a Tupperware box in the woods.

[+The Bongtwashes]

I look forward to seeing no more caches with coords 100 meters out.

It's the satellites that aare improving, no the humans misreading their receivers

[+ivanidea]

What nobody has mentioned is you will need a new gpsr with a credit card on file so you can pay for each time you access the satellite (EU is broke and thinks it's possible to get more money from sat nav users)

 

(I just hope the EU beurocrats don't get any ideas after reading this post )

[+Croesgadwr]

Failed to take off today, another setback.

 

Someone hid the ignition keys in a Tupperware box in the woods.

 

LOL.... not 'arf!

I logged it as a DNF...

[Neath Worthies]

You could always buy a new iPhone 4S and benefit from GLONASS