Beacon Awareness Day (#406Day) on April 6 is an opportunity to celebrate the amazing work carried out by Search and Rescue teams around the world that risk their lives on a daily basis to save people in distress. It also aims to remind the owners of Search and Rescue beacons the need to register their beacon and test them in a regular basis, in particular for what concerns their batteries and, for those already registered, to update their Cospas-Sarsat contact details.

Galileo Open Service and Enhanced SAR/Galileo Service Performance Reports of the fourth quarter of 2020 (covering October, November and December 2020) are available under the Electronic Library of the European GNSS Service Centre web portal.

The processing of the Galileo signal in a multi-constellation environment is providing important benefits and opportunities for precision farming, enhancing the performance of livestock and increasing the achieved accuracy in difficult mountain environments. A Spanish company, Ixoriguè, has integrated Galileo in its positioning solution as part of a combined product for livestock management.

The European GNSS Agency (GSA) together with the European Commission have published an Information Note on the Galileo High Accuracy Service, providing an overview of the main characteristics of the service, along with information on features such as service levels, target performance, an implementation roadmap, and an overview of the target markets for the service. You can download the Information Note here.

The European GNSS Global Navigation Satellite System Agency (GSA) organised an online workshop on 3 March to provide an in-depth analysis of the performance of Galileo and show how this performance is evaluated and how it is crucial for service provision in every user application.

The EUROCAE “ED-277 - Minimum Aviation System Performance Standard for Aircraft Emergency Locator Transmitter Remote Command Via Return Link Service”  has been published and is available. It describes the characteristics of remote command via the Return Link Service for Emergency Locator Transmitter Distress Tracking  - ELT(DT) - in particular for remote beacon activation and deactivation. Today, only Galileo provides Return Link capability.

Under the management of the European GNSS Global Navigation Satellite System Agency (GSA), a collision avoidance manoeuvre for satellite GSAT0219 was performed over the past weekend. This manoeuvre was conducted following a collision risk alert received from EU Space Surveillance and Tracking (EUSST).

Galileo has started testing Open Service Navigation Message Authentication (OSNMA) in the signal-in-space, allowing the first-ever OSNMA-protected position fix to be successfully computed. Testing will continue over the next months, ahead of a so-called “public observation” phase. This is the first-ever transmission of authentication features in open GNSS signals of a global navigation system.

SWEPOS is the CORS network for satellite positioning in Sweden. From the introduction of Galileo in its service in 2018, the network users have observed higher availability and better performances, especially when using a high cut off angle or in harsh environments. Connections to SWEPOS network have increased rapidly, and the number of Galileo users in the region continues to grow.

The Galileo Performance Workshop 2021 led by the European GNSS Agency will offer an in-depth analysis of the performance of Galileo and how it is evaluated for users.