Carlos des Dorides, executive director of the GSA made the following statement after restoration of GNSS services over the Galilleo satellite constellation.

“As members of the GNSS community, you are all undoubtedly aware of the recent technical incident that resulted in the temporary interruption of Galileo navigation and timing services.

The technical incident originated by an equipment malfunction in the Galileo ground infrastructure, affecting the calculation of time and orbit predictions which are used to compute the navigation message. The technical incident affected different elements of the ground facilities.

A team composed of GSA experts, industry, ESA and the Commission worked together 24/7 to address the incident, and Galileo Initial Services have now been restored. In particular, the dedication and work of our industrial partners has helped to achieve this result. Commercial users can already see signs of recovery of the Galileo navigation and timing services, although some fluctuations may be experienced until further notice.

The team is monitoring the quality of Galileo services to restore the Galileo timing and navigation services to their nominal levels. As soon as we gather all the technical elements and implement all necessary actions, we will provide more detailed information through our NAGU (Notice Advisory to Galileo Users) notifications to users.

All partners worked together to remedy the situation as soon as possible. We will set up an Independent Inquiry Board to identify the root causes of the incident. This will allow us to draw lessons for the management of a global operational system with several millions of users worldwide.

The Galileo system has grown stronger as a result of this experience, and we will continue to deliver Initial Services until full operational capability is declared. These challenging days have shown us how much you, the GNSS user community and stakeholders, rely on Galileo and how much you trust the Galileo system to deliver the services to support growth, business and sustainability. Europe and the world need a strong civil global satellite navigation system today more than ever.” http://www.gsa.europa.eu