Galileo's most comprehensive ground station is complete

Date: 2/2/2010

Source: ESA

A new site for the Galileo ground station inside the Guiana Space Centre (CSG), near Kourou in French Guiana was recently inaugurated.

The ground station will play an essential role in the setting up of the Galileo system. The site contains the most comprehensive ground segment stations and consists of a telemetry, tracking and command (TT&C) station to monitor and control the Galileo constellation satellites, a sensor station (GSS) for acquisition of the satellite navigation signals, and two uplink stations (ULS) for transmission of navigation and integrity messages to the satellites.

In total, the Galileo ground segment for the in-orbit validation phase (IOV) will comprise 18 sensor stations, 5 uplink stations, 2 telemetry, tracking and command stations, and 2 Galileo Control Centres (GCCs). The Control Centres will be situated at Fucino in Italy and Oberpfaffenhofen in Germany.

The Kourou Galileo ground station will evolve as the system is built up to full deployment, with the addition of 2 ULS antennae and 2 further redundant GSS channels, producing the final configuration. France's Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) will be responsible for site security and infrastructure maintenance during the operational phase.

ITS Radar International will continue to monitor Galileo

Key words: Galileo