Ever wondered why the likes of Europe want their own versions of the US鈥檚 space-based Global Positioning System?
Given that the full might of GPS is available to one and all and works well most of the time, such variants have often been criticised as expensive vanity projects. And although the US still has the ability to , it has not made use of this feature since President Clinton switched it off at the turn of the century.
But with the capricious Donald Trump now elected to the White House and accompanying doubts about international cooperation, Europe must feel justified in having pursued its own space capabilities, including the satellite-based positioning system, Galileo, which could .
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The signals that rain down from such systems do a lot more than just tell our satnavs and smartphones where we are. They also provide location information to the logistics and transport industries, to the emergency services and to emerging sectors such as driverless cars and precision farming.
Their atomic clocks also keep telephone networks, bank transactions and power grids synced.
Norbert Barthle, Germany鈥檚 state secretary for transport and digital infrastructure, this week said that isolationist messages from the Trump administration underscore why Europe needs its own comprehensive space capabilities. 鈥淚t鈥檚 more necessary than ever that we in Europe have our own capacity to put together successful space missions,鈥� he said at a in French Guiana.
Clock out
But such self-determination is rarely easy. As Trump takes the reins, (which only ) and India鈥檚 equivalent, , were both experiencing mysterious, in-orbit failures of their most critical technology: atomic clocks.
It is the differences in travel time of atomic clock signals from spacecraft to a receiver, in your car for example, that are used to compute a position on Earth. For backup purposes, each Galileo satellite has four clocks, while INRSS spacecraft have three. So far, nine clocks have stopped working across five of the 18 Galileo craft currently in orbit (the final network is due to have 30 satellites), while all three have failed on one IRNSS spacecraft.
Despite these problems, Galileo and IRNSS remain operational, but continued clock failures could ultimately mean a greater dependence on GPS, or perhaps the only other global system, Russia鈥檚 GLONASS network. And who knows what geopolitical ructions could affect their availability?
India is to replace its failed satellite entirely. The European Space Agency and its contractors, meanwhile, have postponed the launch of the next four Galileo satellites from October to the end of this year in the hope that they can solve the clock mystery.
Whether the fault lies with the clocks themselves, external circuitry or perhaps damage from a prelaunch test is as yet unknown. The agency is not commenting on the investigation on the grounds that 鈥渢he Galileo constellation is considered to be part of critical infrastructure鈥�.
Perhaps it鈥檚 even more critical now, as is a fix. Satnavs might tell us where we are 鈥� but with isolationist politics coming to the fore, we no longer know exactly where we stand on international cooperation. Europe鈥檚 plan B looks wise.
