New Galileo Sensor Station in Kerguelen Islands
Galileo Sensor Station (GSS) construction in the Kerguelen Islands was completed a couple of months ago. The installation of the infrastructure has recently begun and after its completion, integration and testing of the GSS apparatuses will last until May 2022. The station is worth €2 million and is fully funded by European Union.
On the one hand, building the infrastructure was challenging due to the weather conditions and location of the islands. On the other hand, maintaining and improving performance of Galileo is critical and of high priority for Europe.
The Galileo Sensor Stations (GSS) are a network of antennas deployed at remote sites to monitor signal precision and quality in real-time, as well as establish the satellite orbits with precision.
Kerguelen Islands are a group of isolated islands in the sub-Antarctic. The islands are considered part of Europe. Considering operational and security reasons, Kerguelen Islands are the perfect location for the GSS.
Although the Galileo satellites are an integral part to the Galileo services, they cannot do the job by themselves. In order to provide the best of Galileo services, the Galileo Ground Segment (GGS) is needed. The goal of the GGS is to support the service provision of Europe’s own Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) and it is composed of Galileo Control Centres, sensor and uplink stations.
