Galileo status: orbits, clocks, and positioning

The European Global Navigation Satellite System Galileo is close to declaration of initial services. The current constellation comprises a total of 12 active satellites, four of them belonging to the first generation of In-Orbit Validation satellites, while the other eight are Full Operational Capab...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inGPS solutions Vol. 21; no. 2; pp. 319 - 331
Main Authors Steigenberger, Peter, Montenbruck, Oliver
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.04.2017
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects
Active satellites
Atmospheric Sciences
Automotive Engineering
Clocks
Earth and Environmental Science
Earth Sciences
Electrical Engineering
Elliptical orbits
Geophysics/Geodesy
Global navigation satellite system
Orbital stability
Orbits
Radiation pressure
Range errors
Review Article
Satellite constellations
Satellites
Solar radiation
Space Exploration and Astronautics
Space Sciences (including Extraterrestrial Physics
Stability analysis
Precise point positioning
Single point positioning
Galileo
GNSS
Orbit modeling
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Summary:The European Global Navigation Satellite System Galileo is close to declaration of initial services. The current constellation comprises a total of 12 active satellites, four of them belonging to the first generation of In-Orbit Validation satellites, while the other eight are Full Operational Capability (FOC) satellites. Although the first pair of FOC satellites suffered from a launch anomaly resulting in an elliptical orbit, these satellites can be used for scientific applications without relevant limitations. The quality of broadcast orbits and clocks has significantly improved since the beginning of routine transmissions and has reached a signal-in-space range error of 30 cm. Precise orbit products generated by the scientific community achieve an accuracy of about 5 cm if appropriate models for the solar radiation pressure are applied. The latter is also important for an assessment of the clock stability as orbit errors are mapped to the apparent clock. Dual-frequency single point positioning with broadcast orbits and clocks of nine Galileo satellites that have so far been declared healthy already enables an accuracy at a few meters. Galileo-only precise point positioning approaches a precision of 2 cm in static mode using daily solutions.
ISSN:1080-5370
1521-1886
DOI:10.1007/s10291-016-0566-5