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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.

Galileo Initial Services have now been restored. Commercial users can already see signs of recovery of the Galileo navigation and timing services, although some fluctuations may be experienced until further notice.

A team of experts from the European GNSS Agency, industry, the European Space Agency and the European Commission is currently implementing and monitoring recovery actions for an incident related to the Galileo ground infrastructure that resulted in a temporary interruption of the Galileo Initial Services. The key objective is to restore the Galileo navigation and timing services for users as soon as possible.

Galileo, the EU's satellite navigation system, is currently affected by a technical incident related to its ground infrastructure. The incident has led to a temporary interruption of the Galileo initial navigation and timing services, with the exception of the Galileo Search and Rescue (SAR) service. The SAR service - used for locating and helping people in distress situations for example at sea or mountains - is unaffected and remains operational.

The third workshop of the GNSS Raw Measurements Task Force, held on 26 June 2019 at the European GNSS Agency (GSA) headquarters, brought around 100 experts together to share their experience and progress around the use of GNSS raw measurements for robustness and for high-accuracy applications within Android devices.

The European GNSS Agency (GSA) has awarded a grant of up to €1.7 million to resilient positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) solution provider Orolia to develop a resilient time and frequency receiver to protect critical GNSS-reliant systems. The Galileo Authenticated Robust Timing System (GEARS) project will provide accurate and highly robust Galileo-based time and frequency data for critical infrastructure. The project should deliver its robust Galileo timing solution by 2021.

The GSA has published a call - OJ/S 299295-2019-EN - in the Official Journal of the European Union containing all the information on the EGNOS Service Provider call.

At the ‘A Day with EO’ conference, held as part of the annual assembly of the European Association of Remote Sensing Companies (EARSC), stakeholders from various sectors came together to discuss the multiple activities that have been made possible, or influenced by Earth Observation. At the event, GSA Executive Director Carlo des Dorides spoke about how the collective experience of the GSA’s market development team would be engaged to benefit the Copernicus programme.

OS and SAR Service Performance Reports for the first quarter of 2019 (covering January, February and March) have been published in the Performance Reports section of the European GNSS Service Centre’s web portal.

Italian rail company Rete Ferroviaria Italiana (RFI), one of Europe’s leading rail infrastructure managers, was an early adopter of the European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS). The company also realised the potential benefits of using satellite positioning early in 2012 when Hitachi Rail STS (formerly Ansaldo STS) was awarded a contract in Australia to deliver a train control system based on ERTMS technology and powered by a virtual balise module relying on satellite positioning data. They are now leading demonstration aiming to foster deployment of these technologies in Europe.