Europe’s GPS-type constellation Galileo down
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For as yet unexplained reasons, Europe’s entire Galileo constellation of GPS-type satellites has been out-of-operation for the past four days.
The European GNSS Agency (GSA), the organization in charge of Galileo, has not published any information in regards to the root of the outage, which began four days ago, on Thursday, July 11. On that day, the GSA published an advisory on its website alerting companies and government agencies employing the Galileo system that satellite signals have degraded and they “may not be available nor meet the minimum performance levels.” The agency warned that the Galileo system “should be employed at users’ own risk.”
The GSA published a more dire warning on Saturday, July 13, when it said that Galileo was experiencing a full-service outage and that “signals are not to be used.”
I cannot imagine any technical problem on the satellites themselves that would cause them all to fail at the same time. Instead, this appears to be some form of sabotage, a variation of the recent Russian tactic of disrupting GPS in areas they consider sensitive.
It also may explain the announcement yesterday by French president Macron that France is going to create its own space command.
For many reasons, mostly political but partly ethical, I do not use Google, Facebook, Twitter. They practice corrupt business policies, while targeting conservative websites for censoring, facts repeatedly confirmed by news stories and by my sense that Facebook has taken action to prevent my readers from recommending Behind the Black to their friends.
Thus, I must have your direct support to keep this webpage alive. Not only does the money pay the bills, it gives me the freedom to speak honestly about science and culture, instead of being forced to write it as others demand.
Please consider donating by giving either a one-time contribution or a regular subscription, as outlined in the tip jar below.
Regular readers can support Behind The Black with a contribution via paypal:
If Paypal doesn't work for you, you can support Behind The Black directly by sending your donation by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman, to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
For as yet unexplained reasons, Europe’s entire Galileo constellation of GPS-type satellites has been out-of-operation for the past four days.
The European GNSS Agency (GSA), the organization in charge of Galileo, has not published any information in regards to the root of the outage, which began four days ago, on Thursday, July 11. On that day, the GSA published an advisory on its website alerting companies and government agencies employing the Galileo system that satellite signals have degraded and they “may not be available nor meet the minimum performance levels.” The agency warned that the Galileo system “should be employed at users’ own risk.”
The GSA published a more dire warning on Saturday, July 13, when it said that Galileo was experiencing a full-service outage and that “signals are not to be used.”
I cannot imagine any technical problem on the satellites themselves that would cause them all to fail at the same time. Instead, this appears to be some form of sabotage, a variation of the recent Russian tactic of disrupting GPS in areas they consider sensitive.
It also may explain the announcement yesterday by French president Macron that France is going to create its own space command.
The Russian subversion of GPS in local areas is a form of jamming. This sounds more like a cyber-warfare attack, possibly involving replacement of the software loads aboard each satellite in the Galileo constellation. It’ll be interesting to see what the public explanation turns out to be.
And might an event like the recent black out in NYC’s Times Square for several hours over the weekend…………………and no one knows who, what or why it happened be associated?
Con Edison is baffled.
Little reminders of how vulnerable we actually are in todays world? A potentially very powerful weapon, and not one shot is fired.
The reason now being given is a problem at a “Precise Timing Facility” in Italy.
Could you imagine the outrage if the USA lost access to GPS? It would mean war and even the hippy dippy American hating marxists and chemtrail huffers would be for it.
The “chemtrail huffers” – nice turn of phrase by the way – might be for it. The Marxists, not so much. They’ve been looking to surrender the U.S. to some communist state for decades and are, no doubt, getting twitchy now that time seems to be running out. With the only actual Marxist tyrannies – Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea – looking notably wobbly our domestic commies may have to settle for working toward our surrender to some merely notionally Marxist state like China before long.
Of course for those domestic Marxists whose hatred of the U.S. exceeds their actual commitment to Marxism, pretty much any authoritarian country will do as the U.S.’s future overlord. Russia and Iran likely top the list, but even Belarus or Zimbabwe would probably do in a pinch.
NBR show just highlighted 50th aniversary moon landing with interview of SNC company and owner, Fatih Ozmen. Interesting space projects but little public exposure like Musk, Bezos, and Branson. I think he is building the highly debateable moon orbiting platform for NASA? I do like his Dream-Chaser air craft idea !!
Very interesting privately owned space company!!