Author Topic: Galileo constellation down for four days  (Read 4640 times)

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Offline bd139Topic starter

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Galileo constellation down for four days
« on: July 15, 2019, 07:17:10 am »
Apparently the Galileo satellite constellation was knackered for four days. Edit: is still down. No satellite fixes here.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/european-gps-satellites-have-been-down-for-four-days-in-mysterious-outage/

Anyone else have any info?
 

Offline awallin

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Re: Galileo constellation down for four days
« Reply #1 on: July 15, 2019, 07:27:51 am »
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/metrology/galileo-navigation-system-unusable/

the fucino (italy) precise timing facility is mentioned..
there might be a backup PTF in germany (oberpfaffenhofen?)- not sure
 

Offline German_EE

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Re: Galileo constellation down for four days
« Reply #2 on: July 15, 2019, 05:11:05 pm »
No backup in Germany that I know of. The Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt who are responsible for things like timing only feed a signal to DCF77 on 77.5 KHz.
Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.

Warren Buffett
 

Offline Black Phoenix

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Re: Galileo constellation down for four days
« Reply #3 on: November 11, 2019, 12:50:06 am »
And now we know a little more about what happened:

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/11/08/galileo_satellites_outage/
« Last Edit: November 11, 2019, 01:23:12 am by Black Phoenix »
 
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Offline BravoV

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Re: Galileo constellation down for four days
« Reply #4 on: November 11, 2019, 01:37:14 am »
Thanks, just love the summary ...

"In short, Galileo is a classic European venture: a great idea with talented people that has turned into a bureaucratic mess in which no one wants to take the blame for problems caused by unnecessary organizational complexity. "

Offline SiliconWizard

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Re: Galileo constellation down for four days
« Reply #5 on: November 11, 2019, 02:03:59 am »
Thanks, just love the summary ...

"In short, Galileo is a classic European venture: a great idea with talented people that has turned into a bureaucratic mess in which no one wants to take the blame for problems caused by unnecessary organizational complexity. "

 ;D

Sadly often true, but still, be fair. Airbus is a great european venture all in all. A lot of what's been done at the ESA as well...
 

Offline magic

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Re: Galileo constellation down for four days
« Reply #6 on: November 11, 2019, 07:53:36 am »
But the whole point of bureaucracy is to eliminate the notions of "responsibility" and "blame" altogether, replacing them with infallible procedures and organizations.

Clearly organizational complexity wasn't sufficient to prevent this mishap, so more rules will be developed and more people will be hired to implement them.
 

Offline Halcyon

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Re: Galileo constellation down for four days
« Reply #7 on: November 12, 2019, 12:59:15 am »
Perhaps I'm missing something but why the need to re-invent the wheel? GPS already has worldwide coverage and been around for decades. What does Galileo or GLONASS offer that GPS doesn't?
 

Offline BravoV

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Re: Galileo constellation down for four days
« Reply #8 on: November 12, 2019, 01:02:06 am »
What does Galileo or GLONASS offer that GPS doesn't?

Independence from US ?

I assume you're aware that US owns the ON/OFF switch for GPS sats right ?

Get a hint of sovereignty matters at each logos ...

GLONASS


Galileo


BeiDou
« Last Edit: November 12, 2019, 01:08:05 am by BravoV »
 

Offline Halcyon

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Re: Galileo constellation down for four days
« Reply #9 on: November 12, 2019, 01:06:30 am »
What does Galileo or GLONASS offer that GPS doesn't?

Independence from US ?

I assume you're aware that US owns the ON/OFF switch for GPS sats right ?

Sure, but if your country relies solely on one technology, then you're doing it wrong.
 

Offline BravoV

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Re: Galileo constellation down for four days
« Reply #10 on: November 12, 2019, 01:11:50 am »
What does Galileo or GLONASS offer that GPS doesn't?

Independence from US ?

I assume you're aware that US owns the ON/OFF switch for GPS sats right ?

Sure, but if your country relies solely on one technology, then you're doing it wrong.

I guess you've sort of answered your own question ?  :-//
 
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Offline CatalinaWOW

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Re: Galileo constellation down for four days
« Reply #11 on: November 12, 2019, 01:22:15 am »
Perhaps I'm missing something but why the need to re-invent the wheel? GPS already has worldwide coverage and been around for decades. What does Galileo or GLONASS offer that GPS doesn't?

Perhaps the question was interpreted incorrectly.  The big complaint about GPS is lack of control.  Another GPS system run by Europe would solve that problem.  And the copy would presumably also copy the organizational/structural features that have kept it pretty reliably on line.

Of course that wouldn't solve some of the problems the other systems are trying to address, like high latitude navigation.  But maybe a hybrid approach, copying what has worked about GPS and adding features would be a good approach.

As a final note, the US turning GPS would have such a large negative effect on US commercial entities that it could only occur under circumstances where the existence of the GPS signal would probably be very far down the list of concerns. 
 
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Offline magic

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Re: Galileo constellation down for four days
« Reply #12 on: November 12, 2019, 07:41:27 am »
As a final note, the US turning GPS would have such a large negative effect on US commercial entities that it could only occur under circumstances where the existence of the GPS signal would probably be very far down the list of concerns.
Plenty of military tech depends on GPS so quite the opposite is true :)
 

Offline Howardlong

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Re: Galileo constellation down for four days
« Reply #13 on: November 12, 2019, 09:36:53 am »
Galileo would never have ever happened at all were it not for the efforts of the UK's SSTL who were brought in at the last minute to provide an initial stop gap satellite GIOVE-A to protect Galileo's ITU allocation (under a use it or lose it protocol). The original contractors working to get something up were running spectacularly late - quite possibly because of the same nonsense bureaucracy already discussed. Off the back of their success, SSTL, not only did they have to jump in to help the faltering project on other early launches, but they now provide the navigation payloads for Galileo. Well, for now anyway!
 

Offline tooki

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Re: Galileo constellation down for four days
« Reply #14 on: November 12, 2019, 12:07:20 pm »
As a final note, the US turning GPS would have such a large negative effect on US commercial entities that it could only occur under circumstances where the existence of the GPS signal would probably be very far down the list of concerns.
Plenty of military tech depends on GPS so quite the opposite is true :)
I think he meant that if things have gotten to the point where the US military is considering turning off GPS, that the situation would have to be apocalyptic. The US understands that GPS has become absolutely indispensable for too many industries.
 

Offline soldar

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Re: Galileo constellation down for four days
« Reply #15 on: November 12, 2019, 12:23:21 pm »
As a final note, the US turning GPS would have such a large negative effect on US commercial entities that it could only occur under circumstances where the existence of the GPS signal would probably be very far down the list of concerns.

That's not how it works. The US Government can degrade the signal for non-military users while maintaining integrity for the military through something called "selective availability". The US government has stated that they do not intend to use S/A ever again in the future, cross my heart and hope to die. Other countries might prefer not to have to rely on the word of the US Government.

Quote
https://www.gps.gov/systems/gps/modernization/sa/faq/

The United States has no intent to ever use SA again. To ensure that potential adversaries do not use GPS, the military is dedicated to the development and deployment of regional denial capabilities in lieu of global degradation.

So, GPS can be denied to non-US-military on a regional basis.

Does that explain why other countries might want to have their own systems?
All my posts are made with 100% recycled electrons and bare traces of grey matter.
 

Offline tooki

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Re: Galileo constellation down for four days
« Reply #16 on: November 12, 2019, 12:39:32 pm »
Nope. Aside from the promise to never again enable Selective Availability, later generation GPS satellites are not equipped with SA capability.

When they talk about “regional denial capabilities”, they mean active jamming, which they could (and presumably would) do to non-NAVSTAR GPS, too.
« Last Edit: November 12, 2019, 12:41:06 pm by tooki »
 

Offline Black Phoenix

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Re: Galileo constellation down for four days
« Reply #17 on: November 12, 2019, 12:48:14 pm »
Nope. Aside from the promise to never again enable Selective Availability, later generation GPS satellites are not equipped with SA capability.

When they talk about “regional denial capabilities”, they mean active jamming, which they could (and presumably would) do to non-NAVSTAR GPS, too.

Russia already does that:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/gps-jamming-affecting-israel-comes-from-russian-base-in-syria-us-researcher/

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/gps-jammed-russia-messing-americas-f-35s-90136

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/nato-fears-russia-jamming-its-gps-systems-war-they-might-have-solution-61437

So is possible for US to do the same to any other system, same about China if they want.
 

Offline magic

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Re: Galileo constellation down for four days
« Reply #18 on: November 12, 2019, 01:34:54 pm »
I think he meant that if things have gotten to the point where the US military is considering turning off GPS, that the situation would have to be apocalyptic. The US understands that GPS has become absolutely indispensable for too many industries.
Even Orange Cheeto? :P

American policy is decided by buying up Congresswhormen or funding $100k worth of fake news and Facebook ads, no surprise nobody trusts them ;)
 

Offline CatalinaWOW

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Re: Galileo constellation down for four days
« Reply #19 on: November 12, 2019, 04:34:06 pm »
Your concerns about the reliability of the US system are not without merit.  Too bad that the solution is less reliable than the problem being fixed.  Will GB be allowed to use Galilleo after Brexit?  Will Galilleo be able to use the embedded GB technology?  How will navigation in the Ukraine be handled?  Or along the Turkish/Iraq border.  Gallileo has the same type of availability concerns as GPS, and has apparently added its own layer of unreliability.  A robust solution.
 

Offline OwO

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Re: Galileo constellation down for four days
« Reply #20 on: November 12, 2019, 04:50:53 pm »
Unless there is localized jamming (or global war) it's likely that among the 5 systems at least one will still be working at any given time...
Email: OwOwOwOwO123@outlook.com
 
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Online iMo

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Re: Galileo constellation down for four days
« Reply #21 on: November 12, 2019, 05:02:26 pm »
All systems have separate channels for public and military use, as well as SA capability (of the public channel), as well as the channels can be switched off/on anytime. I can hardly imagine how you would limit its usage in certain areas like a "border of a state".
The SA does not work such the public service will not be available to a certain state or entity, but it dithers the signal such the precision goes down from say ~10m to ~100m. That is all. US had switched SA on many times on the public channel in past and nobody from public sector noticed that, afaik.
The military channels are not subject of the SA, of course (as you cannot decrypt them with cheapo devices we all use).
SA is there to avoid the situation Dr.No would put his $20 phone with GPS into a rocket he will shoot and navigate against James Bond's yacht.
« Last Edit: November 12, 2019, 05:26:11 pm by imo »
 

Offline jmelson

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Re: Galileo constellation down for four days
« Reply #22 on: November 12, 2019, 06:27:57 pm »

Plenty of military tech depends on GPS so quite the opposite is true :)
But, there are TWO GPS systems, one commercial, one military.  The decryption keys to the military one are not published.
They can turn off the commercial one (or dilute the precision) without affecting the military system.  And, diluted precision is not an on/off setting, they can dilute it to any amount they want.

Jon
 

Offline SiliconWizard

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Re: Galileo constellation down for four days
« Reply #23 on: November 12, 2019, 07:09:42 pm »
Unless there is localized jamming (or global war) it's likely that among the 5 systems at least one will still be working at any given time...

Yup. That in itself justifies having several. Single points of failure are never good.

For the fun fact, I have a receiver that can work with GPS, GLONASS, Galileo and Beidou. Depending on days/hours, it often catches more GLONASS satellites than GPS ones.
 

Offline magic

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Re: Galileo constellation down for four days
« Reply #24 on: November 12, 2019, 09:36:07 pm »
Your concerns about the reliability of the US system are not without merit.  Too bad that the solution is less reliable than the problem being fixed.  Will GB be allowed to use Galilleo after Brexit?  Will Galilleo be able to use the embedded GB technology?  How will navigation in the Ukraine be handled?  Or along the Turkish/Iraq border.  Gallileo has the same type of availability concerns as GPS, and has apparently added its own layer of unreliability.  A robust solution.
:-+

The EU explicitly says they want to be like America and copycats typically come out only worse so we kinda know what to expect ;)
 


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