First Navigation Signal from Galileo 5 Received

News courtesy of CANSPACE Listserv.

The first navigation signal transmission from the fifth Galileo satellite, one of two Full Operational Capability satellites launched into wrong orbits on August 22, was received today.

Stations of the Cooperative Network for GNSS Observation (CONGO) and the International GNSS Service Multi-GNSS Experiment (MGEX) network tracked an E1 signal with a PRN code of E18 this morning. The signal was first tracked at the La Laguna station (LLAG, Tenerife, Canary Islands) at 06:08:00 UTC.

A few moments later, the satellite was also tracked at the Geodetic Observatory Wettzell (WTZ3, Wettzell, Germany) and at the University of New Brunswick (UNBD, Fredericton, Canada). The receivers at all three stations are JAVAD GNSS Triumph receivers.

Analysis of current Galileo satellite visibility at various tracking stations confirms that the active satellite is GSAT0201, also known as Galileo FOC-FM1 or Galileo 5, with COSPAR ID 2014-050A and NORAD ID 40128.

As reported earlier, the perigee of Galileo 5’s orbit was raised in an effort to make the satellite usable for research, at least, and potentially for positioning and navigation.