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Four new Galileo satellites were successfully launched on December 12 from the European spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. This launch brings the Galileo constellation to a total of 22 satellites.

Four Galileo satellites are to be launched on an Ariane 5 launcher from the Kourou Space Centre in French Guyana at 18:36 UTC (19:36 CET) on December 12. For the first time, the European GNSS Agency (GSA) will be responsible for the Launch and Early Orbit Phase (LEOP) of this mission (L9), overseeing Spaceopal GmbH in their new role as Galileo Service Operator.

Less than one year on from the launch of Galileo Initial Services (IS) in December 2016, the European GNSS Service Centre (GSC) near Madrid was the venue for the very first Galileo User Assembly jointly organised by the European Commission and the European GNSS Agency (GSA). During this highly successful gathering of the Galileo community, the European GNSS User Consultation Platform (UCP) was officially launched to provide an open forum for users to discuss their needs, share experiences and provide feedback on the performance of European GNSS (EGNSS).

On 28 and 29 November the First Galileo User Assembly was jointly hosted by the European GNSS Service Centre (GSC) based within Spain’s Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial (INTA) just outside Madrid. As the main interface for European GNSS and its users the GSC featured heavily in the Assembly with briefings on its performance and future service plans. Assembly participants also had the opportunity to visit the main operations centre within this secure facility.

With the 2017 EGNOS User Satisfaction Survey, the European GNSS Agency (GSA) aims to gain a clearer picture of the requirements of EGNOS users so it can improve EGNOS service delivery.

In a recent article published by Geospatial World, the European GNSS Agency (GSA) discusses how the EGNOS Open Service and the EGNOS Data Access Service (EDAS) help provide users with improved location performance.

Now that surveyors worldwide are able to use Galileo positioning, following the declaration of Galileo Initial Services, all major Precise Point Positioning (PPP) providers in Europe have upgraded to Galileo and more than 50% of real time kinematic (RTK) network providers have already upgraded or have started to upgrade.

Last time we checked in with the JOHAN project, the team was finalising the final testing phase. Just a couple years later, they’re on the verge of going global.

The European GNSS Agency (GSA) recently sponsored the 23rd Ka and Broadband Communications Conference and the 35th AIAA International Communications Satellite Systems Conference (ICSSC), two of the most influential technical conferences on satellite systems, which were held jointly in Trieste, Italy, on 16-19 October 2017.

The SpaceTech2017 Hackathon, part of Estonian Space Week, challenged hardware and software developers to utilise the synergies between Galileo and Copernicus to create innovative applications.