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Registration for the 5th Farming by Satellite Prize, which aims to promote the use of EGNSS and Earth observation in European and African agriculture, will open on 16 March. If you are a young innovator with an idea for using satellite technologies to enable sustainable farming practices, improve efficiency in agriculture and reduce its environmental impact, this is your chance to win some great prizes!

The first performance evaluation of the Galileo Return Link Service (RLS) following its launch has revealed excellent service provision that exceeds set targets. The Galileo RLS, which allows people in distress to receive automatic acknowledgement that their signal has been received, was declared operational at the 12th European Space Conference on January 21.

Space applications in support of more efficient agricultural operations and optimised food processing in Europe will be in focus at the EO4AGRI workshop, to be held at the European GNSS Agency’s (GSA) Prague headquarters on 16-17 March.

The European GNSS Agency’s (GSA) has recently launched a call for proposals under its Fundamental Elements funding mechanism targeting the development of a shipborne dual-frequency multi-constellation (DFMC) receiver that leverages the differentiators of European GNSS (EGNOS and Galileo).

The European Innovation Council (EIC) has as its goal to put Europe on top of the next wave of breakthrough and disruptive innovation that creates new markets. Space-based technology fits this profile and there are number of funding opportunities available under open EIC calls that may be of interest to space-tech innovators.

The European GNSS Agency (GSA) and SuperHalfs are delighted to announce that Galileo has thrown its support behind the international half marathon series and will become the Presenting Partner. The news comes as thousands prepare to plot their running journey across the continent.

The GEO-3 payload of the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay System (EGNOS), hosted aboard the EUTELSAT 5 West B satellite, has successfully entered into service. The satellite was successfully launched on a Proton M/Breeze M launch vehicle from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, on 9 October last year.

Although it has been a taboo at the European level up to now, the time has come to break this taboo and to recognise that space is an enabler of security and defence, with a defence dimension for Galileo and a security element for Copernicus, Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton said at the 12th Space Policy Conference in Brussels on 22 January.

The recent successful activation of the Galileo Search and Rescue (SAR) Return Link Service was very much in the spotlight at a press event held at the European GNSS Agency’s (GSA) Prague headquarters on February 3. At the ‘GNSS for #EUProtect’ event, which focused on the contribution of European GNSS to emergency response and civil protection in Europe, the SAR Return Link was successfully tested, demonstrating an impressive response time.

The Galileo performance is reported in the Galileo Initial Services – Open Service – Quarterly Performance Report, where several key performance indicators are analysed according to criteria (Minimum Performance Levels, MPLs) defined in the Galileo Service Definition document (SDD), published in the European GNSS Service Centre and last updated in May 2019.