'Technical incident' knocks Europe's sat-nav system offline

A "technical incident related to ground infrastructure" knocked Europe's Galileo satellite-navigation system offline on the weekend.

The system, which relays timing and positional information to receivers including smartphone users, started failing on Thursday and remained down at midday on Monday, European time.

Devices that had previously relied on Galileo's data automatically switched to source information from other providers, including the United States' Global Positioning System, which is also known as GPS, Russia's Glonass system, and China's Beidou Navigation Satellite System.

The problem started shortly after the European Global Navigation Satellite Systems Agency issued a statement on Thursday that warned users of the Galileo sat-nav system that its signals could become unreliable in the coming hours. By around 2 pm Central European Time on Friday, the system, which is in the roll-out stage and therefore not fully up to speed, was largely out of action and it was fully down on Saturday.

A statement from the agency said: "Experts are working to restore the situation as soon as possible. An anomaly review board has been immediately set up to analyze the exact root cause and to implement recovery actions."

The BBC said initial reports from the agency suggest the fault may have started in a Precise Timing Facility in Italy, which is a ground-based lab that helps ensure all clocks in the Galileo system are correctly calibrated and are using exactly the same time.

The agency said the part of the Galileo sat-nav system that receives and relays Mayday distress calls continued to function.

ZDNet, the online business technology website published by CBS Interactive, said on Monday that none of Galileo's satellites were operational following the fault and noted that the system had been popular among businesses, the private tech sector, and academics because it was free to use.

The Galileo system was spearheaded by the European Commission and the European Space Agency and comprises 26 orbiting functioning satellites and two orbiting backup satellites that provide navigational and timing services. So far, Europe has spent around 9 billion euros ($8.1 billion) on the project and invested 17 years of effort in the development stage before the system started working in December 2016. Currently, it is being expanded, improved, and rolled out. Such systems are used for navigation,as well as the synchronization of global financial transactions, and to support the telecom sector.

Britain's Express newspaper said the incident would have left the European Union "red-faced" because the system was one of its flagship projects and has been described by the bloc as more accurate and robust than the US' GPS system.

So far, there is no word on when the system will be up and running again.

The United Kingdom was a senior partner in the development of Galileo but will likely not have access to it after the nation leaves the European Union, which is slated for the end of October.

The US' GPS system suffered a similar outage in June in parts of Israel, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, something that was blamed at the time on Russian hacking, but Moscow has denied any role in it and said the accusation was "fake news".