The Galileo Search and Rescue (SAR) service is Europe's contribution to an international emergency beacon locating system called "Cospas-Sarsat". Galileo is the largest L-band SAR satellite and ground segment contributor significantly reducing the time needed to accurately locate a distress beacon. Galileo SAR also offers a unique capability called the Return Link that lets users know that their distress signal has been received and the relevant SAR authorities have been notified.

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The Public Regulated Service (PRS) is for government authorised users, including civil protection units, fire brigades, customs officers and the police. It is particularly robust and fully encrypted to provide service continuity in national emergencies and crisis situations, such as terrorist attacks. 

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The Galileo Open Service (OS) is a free of charge global ranging, positioning and timing service. Since 2016, Galileo OS provides Europe and European citizens with independence and sovereignty in the provision of positioning service. The Galileo Open Service can be used by the Galileo enabled chipsets found in devices such as smartphones, smartwatch and car navigation systems.

All the details about the Galileo Services performance can be found in the regular reports published on the web site of the GNSS Service Centre, where users can also find the Galileo Open Service – Service Definition Document (OS SDD), which defines the minimum performance provided by the service.

The European GNSS Service Centre (GSC) is available to help all Galileo users. The GSC Helpdesk can be reached at http://www.gsc-europa.eu.

Galileo significantly improves accuracy in challenging environments, including urban canyons and indoors, especially when used in combination with other GNSS. In combination with other networks, 5G for example, Galileo provides the accuracy, ubiquity and security needed to support seamless indoor-outdoor navigation solutions.

Galileo is interoperable with other GNSS programmes, including GPS (USA), GLONASS (Russia) and BeiDou (China). Receivers with multi-constellation capacity can combine signals from different constellations to provide greater positioning accuracy. Galileo supports an enhanced level of interoperability with GPS thanks to the broadcast of a specific parameter (the Galileo to GPS Time Offset) that simplify the combined exploitation by Galileo receivers of the two constellations.

To further increase the level of Galileo integration, EUSPA works directly with chipset and receiver manufacturers through technology workshops, sharing Galileo updates, co-marketing efforts and dedicated funding for receiver development projects and studies.

Galileo is fully interoperable with GPS, and with other GNSS programmes. The combined use of Galileo and other GNSS brings many benefits to the end user. 

Galileo supports an enhanced level of interoperability with GPS thanks to the broadcast of a specific parameter (the Galileo to GPS Time Offset) that simplify the combined exploitation by Galileo receivers of the two constellations. The concurrent use of various GNSS offers more accurate and reliable positioning and timing synchronisation for end users. Navigation in cities or in complex environments, where satellite signals can often be blocked by buildings, tunnels or cut-offs, particularly benefit from the higher number of satellites in view.

Galileo's accurate timing capability also helps enable more robust, reliable, efficient and resilient synchronisation for critical use domains as banking and financial transactions, telecommunication and energy distribution networks.

Expected performances of Galileo once Full Operational Capability is reached can be found in Annex D of the Open Service-Service Definition Document (OS SDD). In this section, the performance evolution is shown including Full Operational Capability with 24 satellites.

Galileo’s performance has been excellent! Since the launch of Initial Services, the measured Galileo Open Service and Search and Rescue Service performance figures have comfortably exceeded the Minimum Performance Level thresholds set down in their respective Service Definition Documents. It is important to note that the OS performance is excellent not only with respect to the Galileo MPLs but also with respect to the performance other GNSS. 

Since the Galileo High Accuracy Initial Service declaration in January 2023,  HAS performance figures are also being reported and compliance with the Minimum Performance Level thresholds is achieved with considerable margins.

To keep you up to date on Galileo’s performance, the European GNSS Service Centre (GSC) issues quarterly reports on Galileo OS, SAR and HAS performance.

The constellation contains 24 operational satellites and auxiliary satellites not part of the baseline constellation. From most locations, six to eight satellites are always visible, allowing positions and timing to be determined very accurately to within a few centimetres. Interoperability with other GNSS increases the reliability of Galileo services.

For updated information about the constellation status click here