Galileo Satnav: Satellite's clocks fail in space
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Europe's beleaguered Galileo satnav has suffered another setback, with clocks failing onboard a number of satellites in space, the European Space Agency said Wednesday.
Designed to render Europe independent from America's GPS, the 10 billion-euro ($11 billion) project may experience further delays as the cause of the failure is investigated, ESA director general Jan Woerner told journalists in Paris.
Eighteen orbiters have been launched for the Galileo constellation to date, a number that will ultimately be boosted to 30 operational satellites and two spares.
Early, initial services were launched in December, and the failure of nine clocks out of 72 launched to date has not affected operation, Woerner said.
No satellite has been declared "out" as a result of the glitch.
"However, we are not blind... If this failure has some systematic reason we have to be careful" not to place more flawed clocks in space, he said.
Each Galileo satellite has four ultra-accurate atomic timekeepers -- two that use rubidium and two hydrogen maser.
Three rubidium and six hydrogen maser clocks are not working, with one satellite sporting two failed timekeepers.
Each orbiter needs just one working clock for the satnav to work -- the rest are spares.
The question now, Woerner said, is "should we postpone the next launch until we find the root cause?"
The next four satellites were to have been hoisted into space in the second half of 2017.
"You can say we wait until we find the solution, but that means if more clocks are failing then we are reducing the capability of Galileo," the director general said.
"If we launch we will at least sustain if not increase the possibility of Galileo, but we may take the risk (of) a systematic problem."
It was also not known whether the broken clocks can be fixed.
