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Galileo To Be Europe's Answer To US GPS
judgecorp writes "Two Galileo satellites that will signify the start of the European Union's answer to the American Global Positioning System will be launched into orbit on Thursday aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket. It's using Soyuz because it is cheaper than the French Ariane — and the satellite system is supposed to free Europe from dependence on a U.S.-controlled positioning system."
Before Galileo was decided, US did not give the ability to use the full precision of the GPS to non military US units. It also has the capacity to unilateraly switch off GPS on a zone. Galileo will be a civilian system, for anyone to use. Presumably always on.
About redundancy, note that 2 other positioning systems are currently deployed :
Chinese Beidou : https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Beidou_navigation_system
Russian GLONASS : https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/GLONASS
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
OK, I'm a European and not massively fond of the US military, but I am going to take exception to this.
The Galileo *civilian* band originally overlapped with the US *military* band. In other words, you could buy an over the counter device that could guide a weapon to a specific grid reference in an area the US was fighting a war. Remember the rocket forces Hezbollah were able to deploy against Israel? Imagine that with GPS targetting that you can't jam without blinding your own forces.
The US asked ESA to pretty-please-with-sugar-on-top not make consumer devices that had dual uses killing US servicemen. ESA said 'ooh, go on you old rascal' and moved the band.
Now, the situation is that both Navstar (the actual name for US GPS; GPS is just the generic name for such a system) and Galileo have civilian and military bands that don't overlap. Either the US and Europe can jam each others signals, completely, without affecting their own military band. Just as the US can achieve exclusive GPS access in Iraq and Afghanistan, France can do just the same when it unilaterally intervenes in one of its old African colonies.
All the change did was move us from a situation where we were screwing the Americans with our network, to one where we have equal power to screw each others network. This doesn't seem massively unreasonable of the US to ask for.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
Bad news - this likely won't mean it gets a lock on its position any quicker, due to technical reasons. Essentially, the device has to listen for a few seconds to receive the complete signal.
Worse news - each network will require its own proprietary chip, so increased access to GPS networks will come with increased cost, complexity, heat and power issues.
Good news -- you have been misinformed. Single chip GPS/Galileo IC with sub-1-second acquisition and similar power usage to current GPS-only chips.
I don't buy that the stated purpose for the system (independence from the US's military) is very credible, given that the US is, you know, part of NATO and whatnot. And if the EU does turn hostile to the US in some sort of bizarro-world, the US possesses capabilities to shoot them down. So it doesn't make a lot of sense along those lines.
Military alliances like NATO have their place, but I think a major part of this is not about being America's enemy, only about independence. Is it in Europe's interest to not feel they have to bow to America's political pressure? I should certainly think so. America is far to much in the pockets of big corporations, and as long as that is so, I think a politically weaker America is in everybody elses interest - and possibly in the American people's interest as well.
The purpose is easy. Extract money from the citizens. That's the only purpose for which the EU exists.
Please spare us the "TAXES R T3H 3V1L" crap. I pay lots more tax here than I would in the US; however, unlike the case in the US, I find that at least some of the taxes get spent on things that tend to make life better for all.
It's sad that Europeans have to read this news on US sites.
Did you actually see where the links in TFS point to?
Maybe that explains why so many Europeans feel the EU is an evil institute. But I bet nobody outside the EU ever hears about tat.
"So many" = "a few right-wing nutjobs".
Nice attempt at trolling. Better luck next time.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Also, nationalist movements gain consensus by opposing against yelding any sovereignty to the european institutions; this makes the EU weaker, which then allows themselves to point out the EU is just a bureaucratic superstructure with no decision power.
The nationalists whine against the EU when it's time for a state to offer its help to other countries in the union, and then whine again against the EU when it's time to get help from the union, and it doesn't arrive because the nationalists in the other states behave exactly in the same way as they did before (see what happens every time some states are hit by an immigration wave).
Here in Norway we're almost 5 million people and our largest military threat - despite it being post-Cold War is Russia, which is a huge country who could field more soldiers than we have people. If NATO won't help we're screwed anyway and if NATO comes people expect the cavalry to come charging to our rescue anyway. But is the US interested in protecting people that can't be bothered to have a decent defense of their own? If everybody is betting on NATO to aid them, who'll be the ones delivering all the aid? Would you seriously accept the logic on anything that "They have tanks, so we don't have to" "They have carriers, so we don't have to" "They have submarines, so we don't have to". No, Europe should have its Galileo because it's ours even though the US has theirs and we're allies. An alliance should come on top of your own defense, not instead of it.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Did the immigrants come over and steal all your jobs, women and punctuation marks?
For the comments, "We can shoot them down." Completely irresponsible. It's like saying, "If we want to destroy their bridge, we can just Nuke it." If you destroy a satellite, that position in space becomes unusable due to debris for centuries. We're not going to do it. This is why we were very angry with the Chinese for testing ASAT awhile back. Completely unnecessary and very irresponsible. We don't test GBU's on busy highways in the middle of urban cities (unless you include Iraq, but I kid).
Everybody is thinking about war. I was involved, in a small way, with the planning of Galileo, and one of the very big concerns in Europe was that the US could start charging for the use of GPS. The technology is already on the GPS satellites, and it could be done regionally (with fairly big regions, but enough to keep it free in the US whilst charging in Europe and Asia if not in Canada and Mexico). The free availability of GPS without selective availability is subject to annual presidential review. Considering the extent that the world is dependent on GPS now, if the USA started charging it would have the rest of the world over a barrel. Galileo isn't so much about military competition as commercial competition.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
This is total BS because the EU is going broke fast and they want to launch a billion dollar+ program (yes, Euro billion plus, whatever) for duplication?
No, they don't want to launch the programme. They launched the programme something like twenty years ago. They want to continue the programme, which is coming to fruition.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
Fact remains that GPS is controlled by the US (military) and that restrictions are in place for civilian usage as far as accuracy, speed and altitude are concerned. I also still remember quite clearly that during the Iraq war all GPS receivers in Europe were off by about 100m at some point. I do not think that was an accident.
As far as shooting down GPS satellites is concerned: according to Wikipedia that completely irresponsible comment was a threat made by US officials:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_(satellite_navigation)#Tension_with_the_United_States
News about the Kettle Open Source project: on my blog
GPS includes a (currently disabled) feature called Selective Availability (SA) that adds intentional, time varying errors of up to 100 meters (328 ft) to the publicly available navigation signals. This was intended to deny an enemy the use of civilian GPS receivers for precision weapon guidance.
http://www.securityfocus.com/news/10140
President Bush has ordered plans for temporarily disabling the U.S. network of global positioning satellites during a national crisis to prevent terrorists from using the navigational technology, the White House said Wednesday.
So from what I understand, the accuracy of GPS can be degraded for civilians whenever the US government wishes to do it, and GWB tried to make it possible to switch off the network whenever a terrorist attack hits U.S. You have to admit that this doesn't make non-US users of the system feel very secure. I guess that in case of a terrorist attack, the US would not be very concerned about an ongoing French military operation in Ivory Coast for instance, and would switch off or degrade the system without a second thought.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
As much as GWB is everyone's new devil pariah most-loathed person, he can't rewire satellites already in space. And before you quote me Wiki again, no the space shuttle can't go out to 11,000 miles to do an upgrade. It's A) No longer flying B) Not capable of going even close to that distance.
Ignore every movie you've ever saw about space. We don't "flick stuff off and on" at a whim. We don't reposition satellites real time, at least not GPS, DSP, DMSP, or EHF (Milstar) birds. Spy satellites are even harder since they're in a highly elliptical orbit which is travelling at exceptionally high speeds when it's at perigee (the nearest point, which is usually where they're spying on). It's a matter of physics.
We've had many terrorist attacks since SA was turned off: Khobar Towers, USS Cole, 9/11, etc. Still off and no degradation.
I apologize if I gave an impression we physically go up. When I say, "Go up on a bird," it's meaning, contacting the Ground Antenna, establishing C2 (S-band) and going "active", which means transmitting S-bits, etc. At 11,000 miles (plus change) there's no practical way to ever physically get to one of the GPS satellites. When we're done iwht them, we spin them up for physical stability, and then boost them out of their operational orbit. It's also referred to as "super syncing a bird."
If we ever get to a point where the US is so unstable it can't Command and Control GPS satellites, the world will be worried about a ton more pressing things than our GPS satellites. For what it's worth a high school student with two week's pay at minimum wage could have the technical and fiscal ability to jam GPS for a large area. The US Gov isn't your boogey man in this scenario. If we didn't touch GPS on 9/11, I think it's a pretty clear indication it's not on the table.