Kongsberg Satellite Services contributes to the deployment and operation of the Galileo satellite system.

KSAT will host a new ground station for the European Satellite navigation system Galileo.

KSAT has become a hosting entity for the next generation satellite navigation system, Galileo.

Kongsberg Satellite Services As (KSAT) has signed a contract with the European Space Agency (ESA) for the development and hosting of a ground station for the European satellite navigation system, Galileo.

The new ground station shall be collocated with KSATs ground station located at Svalbard, Norway, the Svalbard Ground Station (SvalSat). SvalSat is the worlds largest ground station for polar orbiting meteorological and Earth observation satellites and it is located at almost 80 deg North. SvalSat’s unique location makes it possible to contact the polar orbiting satellites on every of their 14 orbits per day, resulting in a very cost efficient operation.

The Galileo Ground station at SvalSat shall initially be equipped with four antenna systems and the infrastructure shall be ready in the fall of 2006.

The development of this station will ensure that Norway maintains it important role in European satellite navigation, and it confirms KSATs role as a leading provider of services for satellite operation and control as well as a provider of Earth observation services.

KSAT provides Pole-to-Pole Services

KSAT has also proposed to establish a Pole-to-Pole link for two of the Galileo Sensor Stations (GSS). GSS is a set of stations that monitor and validates the navigation signal. By using KSAT SvalSat and TrollSat stations, the navigation signal can seamlessly be controlled from both Antarctica and the Arctic.

KSAT is establishing a general purpose tracking and data reception station in Antarctica called TrollSat.

Norway benefits considerably from Satellite navigation

With a considerable extent of its land and territorial waters, low population density and sub-Arctic to Arctic weather, Norway benefits greatly from the navigation systems. Today, the pre-dominant. Source for navigation data from the sky has been the (mostly) American dominated system Global Position System (GPS).

GPS is free to users and throughout the world provides a positioning accuracy of 5 - 10 metres using decreasingly expensive receivers. In Norway, GPS serves many users, including coastal express ships, aircraft landing at small airfields, snow clearing on mountain passes and various emergency services.

Through its membership in ESA, Norway now is taking part in the development of Galileo, the next generation satellite navigation system. The Galileo system will enhance the GPS system and give Europe an independt satellite navigation system.

Galileo positioning system

The Galileo positioning system is a satellite navigation system, to be built by the European Union (EU) as an alternative to the Global Positioning System (which is controlled by the United States military) and the Russian GLONASS. The system shall be operational by 2010, two years later than originally anticipated.

It is named after the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei. The Galileo positioning system will be referred to as 'Galileo'.

Galileo is intended to provide:

• Greater precision to all users than is currently available.
• Improved coverage of satellite signals at higher latitudes, which northern regions such as Scandinavia will benefit from.
• A positioning system upon which European nations can rely in all times
  

Galileo satellites is a constellation of satellites

• 30 spacecraft
• orbital altitude: 23222 km (MEO)
• 3 orbital planes, 56° inclination (8 operational satellites and one active spare per orbital plane)
• satellite lifetime: >12 years
• satellite mass: 675 kg
• satellite body dimensions: 2.7 m x 1.2 m x 1.1 m
• span of solar arrays: 18.7 m
• power of solar arrays: 1500 W (end of life)

Services

There will be four different navigation services available:

• The Open Service (OS) will be free for anyone to access. Receivers will achieve an accuracy of <4 m horizontally and <8 m vertically. It is expected that most future mass market receivers, such as automotive navigation systems, will process both the GPS C/A and the Galileo OS signals, for maximum coverage.
• The encrypted Commercial Service (CS) will be available for a fee and will offer an accuracy of better than 1 m. The CS can also be complemented by ground stations to bring the accuracy down to less than 10 cm.
• The encrypted Public Regulated Service (PRS) and Safety of Life Service (SoL) will both provide an accuracy comparable to the Open Service. Their main aim is robustness against jamming and the reliable detection of problems within 10 seconds. They will be targeted at security authorities (police, military, etc.) and safety-critical transport applications (air-traffic control, automated aircraft landing, etc.), respectively.
• The Galileo satellites will be able to detect and report signals from COSPAS-SARSAT search-and-rescue beacons which makes them a part of the Global Maritime Distress Safety

Galileo Satellite Test Beds

The European Space Agency and the Galileo Joint Undertaking successfully launched the first of two Galileo In-Orbit Validation Element test satellites, GIOVE-A (GSTB/V2A), on 28 December 2005 by Soyuz launch vehicle at 05:19 UTC from Baikonur, Kazakhstan. It began transmitting as planned at 09:01 UTC while circling the Earth at a height of 23,222 km. GIOVE-A, carries two rubidium atomic clocks, two independently-developed Galileo signal generation chains and equipment to characterize the intermediate circular orbit (ICO) radiation environment.

GIOVE-B, is targeted for launch in the autumn of 2006. GIOVE-B also has clock and MEO environment characterisation objectives, as well as Signal-In-Space and receiver experiments. GIOVE-B will also contain a rubidium atomic clock and additionally the first space-qualified passive hydrogen
maser atomic clock.

These two Galileo testbed satellites will be followed by four in-orbit validation (IOV) Galileo satellites that will be much closer to the final satellite design.

For more information on Galileo, see

http://www.spacetoday.org/Satellites/GalileoEuroNavSat.html http://en.wikipedia.org