Galileo completes his constellation [Update]

On September 5 th 2024, the last two satellites launched during the 12th launch of Galileo on April 28 th, were officially integrated into the Galileo constellation, thus ensuring the sustainability of all services in orbit.

Now Galileo has 25 operational satellites out of 30 satellites placed in orbit. 5 satellites being currently considered unusable for some or unavailable for others (¹). Read more …

Apple finally brings GALILEO on board [Update]

Good news, a year after its appearance on the first smartphones (¹), Apple finally integrates a GNSS receiver chipset compatible GALILEO. The iPhone 8/8+ and soon iPhone X are now equipped with the Snapdragon X16 LTE modem MDM9655 from Qualcomm, which includes a multi-GNSS receiver : GPS (USA), GLONASS (Russia), GALILEO (Europe) and QZSS (Japan) (²).

[Update 15/12/2017] The iPhone 6S and 7 are now compatible with Galileo signals.

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GALILEO and Apple mobiles

Less than a month before the launch by Ariane 5 of four new satellites carrying the GALILEO constellation to 18 satellites, manufacturers of tracking components have already presented their new tracking chips supporting European GNSS. This allowed the Spanish company BQ to offer the first “Galileo-ready” smartphone at the beginning of September., equipped with processor Qualcomm Snapdragon 652, l’Aquarius X5 Plus.

We might have expected to find the same chip in the iPhone 7 from Apple, which has since fitted the iPhone 4S and the iPad 3 all of its mobile devices with Qualcomm communications processors, integrating GPS reception (US) and GLONASS (Russian), it's nothing. With this latest smartphone, Apple reconnects with Broadcom, sidelined since 2012 to perform these functions, by integrating a chip BCM47734.

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2016 Year of GALILEO

Since my first post on GALILEO end 2011 (¹), space Europe has made significant progress. Despite economic uncertainties and numerous budgetary restrictions, Course and schedule have been maintained thanks to a community political flawless. This is to be welcomed because many other areas of European action didn't have the scoop.

The year 2016 has already been dubbed "the year of GALILEO".. Ce fut le message clair du Sommet de la Navigation par Satellite de Munich (²) début mars. Le sommet de Munich couvrait tous les systèmes GNSS, mais l’accent cette année était carrément sur GALILEO. Read more …

Galileo, here we go !

Barely published, on April 20 October, my previous post about iPhone 4S new GPS chipset – allowing you to receive signals from the Russian GLONASS system – in which I inserted a skeptical comment about the future of Galileo, que je me vois rattrapé par l’actualité.

Non seulement les deux premiers satellites de Galileo ont été lancés le lendemain 21 octobre avec succès depuis Kourou, mais de plus par le lanceur russe Soyouz ! J’espère que vous apprécierez le comique de la situationRead more …