Ready to throw away the GPS? Galileo satellite system arrives
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Rest assured, with the arrival of the European Galileo satellite navigation system, launched today, your GPS will not be retired. Precise the new European GPS rival for now will serve no purpose in the nautical sphere. The only result is that it cost the pockets of European taxpayers 10 billion euros and came to market after 17 years of gestation, controversy and costs three times the budget.
GOOD IDEA, ABSURD IMPLEMENTATION TIME
When Galileo, the satellite navigation system developed by the European Union and the European Space Agency (ESA), was born, it was supposed to be the European rival to GPS, which is owned by the United States. The basic idea was right: why leave the monopoly of satellite tracking in the hands of one nation, and if they blacked it out one day what would happen? But between saying and doing, there’s a sea…and bureaucratic slowness of the European Union has delayed the launch of the European system by more than 10 years. Allowing the U.S. GPS to become the world market reference, except for the Russians who use their GLONASS system.
WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN
Now, do you think device manufacturers are going to switch systems, from GPS to Galileo, in the name of supposedly greater accuracy announced by Galileo? The vaunted accuracy heralded to the millimeter instead of the “one-meter” GPS accuracy of the much trumpeted Galileo launch is still utopia.
THE FUTURE IS NOT BRIGHT
As of today, the Galileo system can count on 14 spacecraft plus 4 more in the testing phase: once the deployment is completed in 2020, the total number of satellites will be 30. This is a smaller amount of spacecraft than the GPS which has 31 satellites, with five others that have been decommissioned but can be reactivated if needed. We hope to be proven wrong by facts for the future.
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