Slashgeo

konquest writes "GIOVE-A, the first satellite in the Galileo system has successfully communicated with Earth, after its launch on December 28th." Our previous story on the launch. Slashdot also covers the story and provide a link to the BBC News.

After serious troubles on the Galileo front, the European Parliament is now financially backing Galileo. From the short article: "The EU Parliament wants to reopen the EU's long-term budget perspectives to fund Galileo, whereas a majority of member states prefer taking the missing €2.4 billion from other EU programmes. According to estimates, some €3.4 billion will be needed to put Galileo's 30 satellites into orbit, whereas currently only €1 billion is foreseen for the operational expenditure in the EU's long term budget 2007-2013."

In an update to a previous story about plans for GPS and Galileo compatibility, GISDevelopment.net links to a story at Location about a new agreement between the US and the EU for making their respective navigation satellite systems, GPS and Galileo, compatible. From the article: "The European Commission (EC) said a joint working group had overcome technical challenges to design interoperable civil signals. Experts have agreed that a multiplexed binary offset carrier (MBOC) waveform will be used on both systems instead of the binary offset carrier, or BOC (1,1) waveform, as stated in a 1984 agreement between the United States and the EU. The MBOC signal was proposed by a technical working group to examine further refinements to the design. Future receivers using the MBOC signal should be able to track the GPS and/or Galileo signals with higher accuracy in challenging environments that include multipath, noise, and interference, said the EC."

Galileo is targeted to be operational in 2012.

Here's a few news regarding the Galileo European satellite navigation system. The SatNav blog questions the objectives of the Galileo program and provide comments following a European Commission communication on Galileo. Related, APB links to an article on the European Commission outlining its plan to get the Galileo satellite navigation system back on track [BBC] and new delays for the second satellite launch. From the BBC article: "This would mean member states having to find about a billion more than they expected because of the collapse of private sector involvement. The EC is determined to have Galileo operational by the end of 2012. However, this target is dependent on financing arrangements being put in place this year. So far, only four spacecraft in the eventual 30-satellite constellation have been ordered. Unless contracts are issued for more platforms in the coming months, the timetable will slip again and Europe's biggest single space project may then face calls to be scrapped altogether." See also the related stories below.

Here's a few recent news regarding GALILEO and GLONASS GPS systems. I copied in related stories below many items of interest regarding the two programs. Recent geoblogs entries include Vector One discussing GALILEO: "Today Christopher Booker of the Telegraph newspaper in the UK sums up the project in his column, “The costs of Galileo have already taken off so wildly (and it is already six years behind schedule), that we may well hand over much more than £1.7 billion to pay for our 17 per cent share in this white elephant (somehow two thirds of the EU’s members have managed to get out of paying anything at all).”" Google's Ed Parsons chimes in. Meanwhile, GLONASS seems in much better shape, as indicated by this other V1 entry and the news of the successful new GLONASS satellite launch.

A few geoblogs discussed the European GALILEO project and the news are more or less good. Amongst the entries, you have GeoCarta underlines the 2.4 billion euros of fresh money sent to GALILEO required to continue development, from The Register: "States voted to back a €2.4bn funding deal, drawing cash from unused farming subsidies, and restructuring research and industrial spending for the year. This means the European rival to the US military's GPS system can go ahead, but no extra public funds will be written into the EU's budget to pay for it." V1 also discuss this impressive amount of leftovers and provides other links, V1 also make a relation to the U.S. updated GPS III satellites: "The US military is working on super-powerful updates to its GPS satellite navigation technology to try to trump the rival European Galileo project which just received key funding, experts say." Not as much tightly related, APB links to survey indicating Garmin is the #1 maker of portable navigation systems, consumers say. Update: 11/30 20:12 GMT by S : Let's not forget GLONASS, here's a recent article where we learn: "Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, wants to spend at least $60 billion over the next 10 years to make Russia a global high-tech titan [...]"

The SatNav blog runs an informative entry on eLORAN (enhanced LOng RAnge Navigation) and its adoption by the U.S. and the U.K. as a GPS/GLONASS/GALILEO satellites backup. From the the entry: "As such it is the best insurance policy money can buy to secure the benefits of GNSS [Global Navigation Satellite System] for safety and commercially important applications. The US recently made the decision to upgrade its LORAN system to eLORAN capability and at the same time move the operation of the system from U.S. Coast Guard to the Department of Homeland Security’s National Protection and Programs Directorate. [...] An excellent rationale for eLORAN highlighting its role as a complement to GNSS is here [pdf]." In mid-January, APB discussed the U.S. call for comments on shutting down LORAN-C.