Galileo sat-nav system experiences service outage
Europe's satellite-navigation system, Galileo, has suffered a major outage. The network has been offline since Friday due to what has been described as a "technical incident related to its ground infrastructure". The problem means all receivers, such as the latest smartphone models, will not be picking up any useable timing or positional information.
These devices will be relying instead on the data coming from the American Global Positioning System (GPS). Depending on the sat-nav chip they have installed, cell phones and other devices might also be making connections with the Russian (Glonass) and Chinese (Beidou) networks.
[...] The specialist sat-nav publication Inside GNSS said sources were telling it that the problem lay with a fault at a Precise Timing Facility (PTF) in Italy. A PTF generates and curates the reference time against which all clocks in the Galileo system are checked and calibrated.
The function on Galileo satellites that picks up distress beacon messages for search and rescue is said to be unaffected by the outage.
[...] Europe's alternative to GPS went "live" with initial services in December 2016 after 17 years of development. The European Commission promotes Galileo as more than just a back-up service; it is touted also as being more accurate and more robust.
Related: Galileo Satellites Experiencing Multiple Clock Failures
UK May Have to Deploy its Own Satellite Navigation System Due to Brexit
GPS is Getting Competition
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The onboard atomic clocks that drive the satellite-navigation signals on Europe's Galileo network have been failing at an alarming rate.
Across the 18 satellites now in orbit, nine clocks have stopped operating. Three are traditional rubidium devices; six are the more precise hydrogen maser instruments that were designed to give Galileo superior performance to the American GPS network.
Galileo was declared up and running in December.
However, it is still short of the number of satellites considered to represent a fully functioning constellation, and a decision must now be made about whether to suspend the launch of further spacecraft while the issue is investigated. Prof Jan Woerner, the director general of the European Space Agency (Esa), told a meeting with reporters: "Everybody is raising this question: should we postpone the next launch until we find the root cause, or should we launch? "You can give both answers at the same time. You can say we wait until we find the solution but that means if more clocks fail we will reduce the capability of Galileo. But if we launch we will at least maintain if not increase the [capability], but we may then take the risk that a systematic problem is not considered. We are right now in this discussion about what to do."
Each Galileo satellite carries two rubidium and two hydrogen maser clocks. The multiple installation enables a satellite to keep working after an initial failure. All 18 spacecraft currently in space continue to operate, but one of them is now down to just two clocks. [...] It appears the rubidium failures "all seem to have a consistent signature, linked to probable short circuits, and possibly a particular test procedure performed on the ground".
[...] Actions are being taken to try to prevent further problems. These involve changing the way clocks are operated in orbit. Clocks about to fly are also likely to be refurbished, and future devices yet to be made will have design changes, the agency says.
Esa is hopeful it can still launch the next four satellites in the constellation before the end of the year.
Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-38664225
The UK may deploy its own constellation of navigation satellites due to being excluded from the European Union's Galileo project:
Britain is considering setting up a satellite navigation system to rival the European Union's Galileo project amid a row over attempts to restrict Britain's access to sensitive security information after Brexit, the Financial Times reported.
[...] "The UK's preference is to remain in Galileo as part of a strong security partnership with Europe. If Galileo no longer meets our security requirements and UK industry cannot compete on a fair basis, it is logical to look at alternatives," she said.
The European Commission has started to exclude Britain and its companies from sensitive future work on Galileo ahead of the country's exit from the EU in a year's time, a move which UK business minister Greg Clark said threatened security collaboration.
"We have made it clear we do not accept the Commission's position on Galileo, which could seriously damage mutually beneficial collaboration on security and defence matters," he said in an emailed statement.
Although basic Galileo services are supposedly free and open to everyone with no risk of being disabled or degraded, higher-precision capability is available only to paying commercial users.
Now we have GPS, Galileo, BeiDou/COMPASS, GLONASS, IRNSS/NAVIC, QZSS, and possibly a British satnav system in the future. Devices can use multiple systems to achieve greater precision. Check out this comparison of systems.
Also at BBC and The Independent.
Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984
Where are you? That's not just a metaphysical question, but increasingly a geopolitical challenge that is putting tech giants like Apple and Alphabet in a tough position.
Countries around the world, including China, Japan, India and the United Kingdom plus the European Union are exploring, testing and deploying satellites to build out their own positioning capabilities.
That's a massive change for the United States, which for decades has had a practical monopoly on determining the location of objects through its Global Positioning System (GPS), a military service of the Air Force built during the Cold War that has allowed commercial uses since mid-2000 (for a short history of GPS, check out this article, or for the comprehensive history, here's the book-length treatment).
[...] Now, a number of other countries want to reduce their dependency on the U.S. and get those economic benefits. Perhaps no where is that more obvious than with China, which has made building out a global alternative to GPS a top national priority. Its Beidou (北斗 – "Big Dipper") navigation system has been slowly building up since 2000, mostly focused on providing service in Asia.
Source: https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/21/the-gps-wars-have-begun/
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Hyperturtle on Monday July 15 2019, @04:09PM (11 children)
Where's the plan B?
It isnt robust if it doesn't work when a single point of failure renders most of it useless.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 15 2019, @04:38PM (2 children)
The American Global Positioning System.
No need to thank us, we stopped expecting that a long time ago.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 15 2019, @06:22PM (1 child)
No worries, you stopped deserving it a long time ago too.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday July 15 2019, @07:57PM
2017 isn't that long ago.
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(Score: 4, Touché) by DannyB on Monday July 15 2019, @04:52PM (6 children)
Take a lesson from Microsoft.
Microsoft does not build systems with a single point of failure.
Failure is dispersed approximately evenly throughout the system because redundancy is good.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 15 2019, @05:04PM (5 children)
Microsoft builds systems with multiple points of failure.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday July 15 2019, @06:28PM (4 children)
Jobs created!
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday July 15 2019, @07:56PM (3 children)
I suppose the more points of failure, the more assembly line workers it takes to attach each one. The higher the BOM cost.
But maybe robots can replace assembly line workers and attach more points of failure in half the time. Jobs lost.
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(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday July 15 2019, @08:36PM (2 children)
The plebeians must be kept occupied. With what matters not, as long as they're busy and think it's necessary. Idle minds are the devil's workshops. The $ will flow and none will be the wiser.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday July 16 2019, @02:07PM (1 child)
Idle 3D printers are the devil's plaything.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Tuesday July 16 2019, @04:31PM
Holy critical mass, Batman! We must keep the 3D printers away from the plebeians!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Monday July 15 2019, @05:43PM
The project is super delayed and isn't supposed to be production ready for at least another year. So delayed that some of the first satellites have already been decommissioned LOL.
In theory when its in production mode, there will be dual ground stations in Italy and Bavaria. Since its not in production, heck who knows maybe Bavaria isn't built yet.
My gut level guess is some kind of disaster recovery test was attempted as part of production-rating the system, and it failed.
The concept of having two and exactly only two standard time services sounds weird to me. Man with one clock knows the time. Man with three clocks can rub them up against each other to create a valid statistical model of long term drift so he REALLY knows what time it is. Man with only two clocks has no friggn idea what time it actually is.
For a variety of fascinating political, military, and economic competition reasons, this testing failure is being heavily marketed as a production failure.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Bot on Monday July 15 2019, @07:33PM (2 children)
Eppur non c'e' segnale.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday July 15 2019, @09:07PM (1 child)
Investigate Catholic Bot for Galileo sabotage.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday July 16 2019, @02:10PM
Verify specifically if bot has one or more probes which may have inserted into incorrect locations of Galileo 7.
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(Score: 2, Informative) by Zoot on Tuesday July 16 2019, @03:40AM
Ermahgerd, can we stop saying things like this? Satnav systems are passive receivers that don't "connect" to anything.
Z.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Tuesday July 16 2019, @07:26AM (1 child)
I just read the latest article I could find [insidegnss.com] on the outage. It has apparently been down for six days now. The article notes that the Galileo organization itself is not providing any information - it's all coming from inofficial sources.
Then this interesting note from one of their sources: “When you provide this kind of service you are supposed to struggle to the death and at all costs to guarantee availability and continuity first, and performance immediately thereafter. This is not the present mentality.”
I've been involved in a couple of EU projects in the past. I now avoid them. There was always lots of emphasis on international cooperation, on distributing the tasks among all of the participants, even if this made no sense for the project itself. But that was ok, because there was no sense of urgency: If any work got done, it was more by accident than intent. From that last comment, I gather that this is the case with Galileo as well.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday July 16 2019, @02:38PM
> There was always lots of emphasis on international cooperation, on distributing the tasks among all of the participants
Also great dedication to paperwork - lots of receipts for every expenditure, which presumably someone is tracking. Lots of pseudo-"contracts" which involve writing regular reports, which presumably someone is tracking. But no real work has to be produced, as long as the report is written the content could be anything.