Galileo is Europe’s satellite navigation system, built by the European Union and the European Space Agency. Its satellites orbit about 23,200 km above the Earth in three planes tilted 56°, each going around in about 14 hours. Like GPS, every satellite broadcasts precise time from atomic clocks, and a receiver combines several signals to find its position. Galileo is civilian, and it also relays distress beacons for search and rescue. Most phones sold today use Galileo together with GPS, GLONASS and BeiDou, which gives a more reliable position in cities, where buildings hide part of the sky.
Where are the Galileo navigation satellites?
Computing…
Questions and answers
Is Galileo better than GPS?
Both are accurate to a few metres for everyone; using them together helps most, since more satellites are in view.
Why is Galileo higher than GPS?
Its designers chose an orbit whose ground track repeats every ten days and that covers high latitudes well, such as northern Europe.
Where the numbers come from
Values refresh every second in your browser; the published data are checked every 10 minutes and updated several times a day.