Ariane 5 rocket has launched four new Galileo satellites

The European Space Agency has launched four new satellites for the European civil positioning system Galileo with a launch of an Ariane 5 rocket.

With this launch from the Center Spatial Guyanais in French Guiana, four new satellites have been added to the eighteen Galileo satellites already in orbit. The four satellites will eventually reach more than 23,000 km above the Earth, at an angle of 56 degrees to the equator. This means that the positioning should also work well at high latitudes, such as in the far north of Norway. In 2018, the Ariane 5 rocket will launch four more satellites, after which Ariane 6 will take over from 2020 onwards.

The European GPS alternative Galileo went live on December 15, 2016. The system is expected to be fully operational in 2019. By 2020, all 30 planned satellites will be in orbit. Galileo is a system of the European Union and the European Space Agency.

Compared to the American GPS, for example, Galileo can provide a much more accurate positioning. The system should also enable more accurate synchronization of clocks for critical applications. More and more smartphones appear to support the European system; chipsets increasingly include support for Galileo, such as the iPhone 8, 8 Plus, iPhone X, Sony Xperia XZ, OnePlus 5, Huawei P10 and Samsung S8 and S8+. Qualcomm has also built the support into socs such as the Snapdragon 625 and 435.

There are now various systems for location determination with satellites. Besides the US GPS, Russia has Glonass, China has BeiDou and India has Irnss. Japan launched a fourth satellite in October for its Quasi-Zenith Satellite System, a civilian positioning system. The very accurate positioning should be operational sometime in 2018.