Galileo (European GPS) id down

[Cpt Pat]

For those of you who think it's safe to consider satellite navigation as being 100% reliable -- the European version of GPS is completely unusable at this time: https://www.gsc-europa.eu/sites/default/files/NOTICE_ADVISORY_TO_GALILEO_USERS_NAGU_2019026.txt

Current status is here: https://www.gsc-europa.eu/system-status/Constellation-Information

The entire system collapsed about the same time transformers started blowing up in New York City.

Coincidence? Draw your own conclusions.

There is no reason the same thing couldn't happen to the American GPS system. Galileo and GPS are essentially the same design.

I personally use both GPS and GLONASS together (which also improves accuracy under normal conditions). I figure the Russians won't disrupt their own navigation satellites.

[redneckrob]

Originally Posted by Cpt Pat

There is no reason the same thing couldn't happen to the American GPS system. Galileo and GPS are essentially the same design.

Well one reason could be that Galileo is in IOC (effectively beta test) while GPS has been FOC for decades. Of course that's not as fun an explanation as some kind of global conspiracy

[transmitterdan]

It's more than a planned outage. This is something unexpected IMO.

Updated on July 15, 5:30am ET: In a statement published after this article's publication, the GSA blamed the Galileo outage on "a technical incident related to its ground infrastructure." The agency said that the search and rescue (SAR) feature -- used for locating and helping people in distress situations for example at sea or mountains -- remained operational during the outage, which impacted only navigational and satellite-based timing services.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/europe...erious-outage/

[B23iL23]

Nothing to do with the outage in New York. It's a ground systems failure but also bear in mind that Galileo is not live. It's still in test mode so relying on it anyway would not be a good idea.

Originally Posted by Cpt Pat

For those of you who think it's safe to consider satellite navigation as being 100% reliable -- the European version of GPS is completely unusable at this time: https://www.gsc-europa.eu/sites/default/files/NOTICE_ADVISORY_TO_GALILEO_USERS_NAGU_2019026.txt

Current status is here: https://www.gsc-europa.eu/system-status/Constellation-Information

The entire system collapsed about the same time transformers started blowing up in New York City.

Coincidence? Draw your own conclusions.

There is no reason the same thing couldn't happen to the American GPS system. Galileo and GPS are essentially the same design.

I personally use both GPS and GLONASS together (which also improves accuracy under normal conditions). I figure the Russians won't disrupt their own navigation satellites.

[Cpt Pat]

Originally Posted by redneckrob

Well one reason could be that Galileo is in IOC (effectively beta test) while GPS has been FOC for decades. Of course that's not as fun an explanation as some kind of global conspiracy

Did someone mention a conspiracy?

[Cpt Pat]

Originally Posted by B23iL23

Nothing to do with the outage in New York. It's a ground systems failure but also bear in mind that Galileo is not live. It's still in test mode so relying on it anyway would not be a good idea.

That's very impressive: you came to a conclusion vis-a-vis the New York outages while the real experts are still examining the evidence.

In all of the global satellite navigation systems, it's the "ground segment" that's most vulnerable to either accidental or malicious disruptive compromise.

This illustrates how an entire GNSS constellation can collapse when failures happen on the ground.

As of this writing, Galileo is still down. Here's a current article: https://www.zdnet.com/article/europe...erious-outage/.

The article also mentions how GPS has been disrupted: "across Israel, Iran, Iraq, and Syria at the end of June. Israeli media blamed the downtime on Russian interference, rather than a technical problem."

[Midnight Son]

Maybe they should think again about eLoran, tougher to spoof, not impossible, just tougher.
Cheers

[Cpt Pat]

Originally Posted by Midnight Son

Maybe they should think again about eLoran, tougher to spoof, not impossible, just tougher.
Cheers

I couldn't agree more! The unreliability of GPS is even worse for pilots. eloran wouldn't be adequate for precision instrument approaches, but it's better than nothing at all. There's nothing worse than being lost in three dimensions, in clouds, at 400 knots. The FAA is phasing out all our backups (VORs, etc.), while for mariners, your only backup now when out of sight of land, is a sextant.

I'm overjoyed when I can get a noon sight solution that's within 8 miles of my actual position while rocking around in ocean swells.

Apparently, having a backup is bad economics with our current crop of government bean counters.

Europe is working hard on implementing eloran. The US Congress is trying - for what that's worth (not much IMHO). https://rntfnd.org/2017/05/21/why-co...bility-eloran/

[barnakiel]

But of course Americain gps will never fail, you know, because it is OURS.


So much for our stupid exchanges about what may fail and why.


Here is their service status page:


Constellation Information | European GNSS Service Centre


What a slap to EU and their cocky attitude.


I am 100% happy this has happened.


And I hope nobody gets hurt by a falling drone ;-)


barnakiel

[barnakiel]

I too think that some form of alternative system (alternative to sat based systems) would be nice to have. Except that it is all driven by military and large commercial use and has been deemed too expensive at early research stages.


Too expensive sounds truly terrible when you know that Galileo cost over 10 bn EUR this far.


b.

[B23iL23]

Sometimes the news sites are behind the investigation. The issue has been traced to the time signal which is generated in Italy. As this propagates through the entire system, it has impacted the complete constellation. As the network was still in test mode, maybe this failure point was known and accepted or maybe this is an "unknown unknown" and will need work to make the network more resilient.

Originally Posted by Cpt Pat

That's very impressive: you came to a conclusion vis-a-vis the New York outages while the real experts are still examining the evidence.

In all of the global satellite navigation systems, it's the "ground segment" that's most vulnerable to either accidental or malicious disruptive compromise.

This illustrates how an entire GNSS constellation can collapse when failures happen on the ground.

As of this writing, Galileo is still down. Here's a current article: https://www.zdnet.com/article/europe...erious-outage/.

The article also mentions how GPS has been disrupted: "across Israel, Iran, Iraq, and Syria at the end of June. Israeli media blamed the downtime on Russian interference, rather than a technical problem."

[transmitterdan]

There is an eLoran system in UK. It has very limited coverage. Russia has Chakya for the Arctic and Siberia which is similar to eLoran. Saudi Arabia has an original Loran-C chain still operating.

Germany, Japan and US have low frequency timing systems but these don’t support position or velocity solutions. The US (WWVB) coverage is spotty too. Japan (JJY) and Germany (DCF-77) coverage is pretty good in their respective coverages.

What is needed is a world agreement for a terrestrial position, navigation and timing system that complements GNSS so users could have an alternative source of position, navigation and timing. Just having an alternate source of precision time and position greatly reduces the motivation for bad actors to muck with all the GNSS systems around the world. Many high level people are concerned and I suspect there is a small army of engineers devising a workable alternative to GNSS.

[redneckrob]

Originally Posted by Cpt Pat

Did someone mention a conspiracy?

Would it make you feel better if I called your statement:

Originally Posted by Cpt Pat

The entire system collapsed about the same time transformers started blowing up in New York City.

Coincidence? Draw your own conclusions.

"Wild conjecture without a shred of evidence"? Probably is more accurate, but I was trying to be charitable.

[redneckrob]

Originally Posted by Cpt Pat

I couldn't agree more! The unreliability of GPS is even worse for pilots. eloran wouldn't be adequate for precision instrument approaches, but it's better than nothing at all. There's nothing worse than being lost in three dimensions, in clouds, at 400 knots. The FAA is phasing out all our backups (VORs, etc.), while for mariners, your only backup now when out of sight of land, is a sextant.

I'm overjoyed when I can get a noon sight solution that's within 8 miles of my actual position while rocking around in ocean swells.

Apparently, having a backup is bad economics with our current crop of government bean counters.

Europe is working hard on implementing eloran. The US Congress is trying - for what that's worth (not much IMHO). https://rntfnd.org/2017/05/21/why-co...bility-eloran/

Having flown many thousands of hours professionally I was pretty much never in IMC in a position where I couldn't have gotten myself to at least a GCA if not a PAR or just vectors to VMC if my GPS failed suddenly. Or execute the missed if I'm on approach. What are you flying around at 400 knots that you suffer that kind of loss of situational awareness that you end up lost in 3 dimensions when your GPS kicks off? Might I humbly suggest your safe flying days may be behind you?

[CarinaPDX]

Since they are not officially in service until next year this is all much ado about nothing. Galileo has experienced several problems, including with the atomic clocks in their satellites. It is no small thing to duplicate GPS from scratch without the benefit of the US experience over decades. Kicking the UK out isn't helpful either.

For the conspiracists, it would be nice to know the politics behind the destruction of the LORAN system in the US. At a time that eLORAN was being mooted, with its rather obvious value as a terrestrial-based alternative (backup) to GPS based on existing infrastructure, a decision was made not to just shut down LORAN but to destroy the LORAN antenna towers immediately. That always had a smell about it...

Greg