European Space Agency (ESA) Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain briefed the media on January 16, 2015 for the traditional start-of-year press conference on the activities and challenges for 2015. Dordain discussed the 22Aug2014 failure of the first two Galileo full-operational capability (FOC) satellites to achieve their intended orbit. Dordain did not make any remarks regarding the issues surrounding the failure. He did, however, emphasize that the satellites were functioning ‘perfectly’ and had their orbits changed so that they were no longer passing through the Van Allen radiation belt (which, he noted, causes premature aging of satellites). Dordain also noted that six Galileo satellites are planned to be launched during 2015 with some combination of Soyuz and Ariane-5 boosters. [Note: Dordain’s remarks on Galileo begin at 11:43 in the press briefing]

The full Galileo constellation is planned to have 30 satellites in medium Earth orbit. While the constellation is being fielded, researchers can simulate the coverage that Galileo will provide by using desktop simulation software such as the GPSoft SatNav Toolbox for MATLAB.