Evaluation Engineeering - 4

EU's GPS-like Galileo
service suffers setback

Raytheon upgrading
Germany's Patriot air
defense system

Galileo, the European Union's
answer to GPS, regained initial services on July 18 after
a weeklong outage that began on July 11. According to
a release by the European
Global Navigation Satellite
Systems Agency, known as
GSA, "Commercial users can
already see signs of recovery
of the Galileo navigation and
timing services, although
some f luctuations may be
experienced until further
notice."

U.S.-China trade dispute deepens
The agency reported that
the problem originated in
an equipment malfunction
in the Galileo ground infrastructure. The downtime period resulted in smartphones
and other receivers being incapable of obtaining usable
timing or positional data
from GNSS. Those devices
instead had to rely on GPS, as
well as Russian and Chinese
technologies, depending on
the sat-nav chips installed
in the devices.
EU's Galileo is presently
in an initial roll-out phase
since it was launched in 2016,
which means it would not yet
lead critical applications. It
has been reported that the
search-and-rescue functions
on Galileo satellites are unaffected by the outage. There
were 26 Galileo satellites in
Earth orbit as of early August.

On Aug. 2, President Donald Trump said the U.S would levy a 10%
tariff on $300 billion worth of Chinese goods that, until now, were
exempt from duties. On Aug. 13, the U.S. Trade Representative
office said that those tariffs would be delayed until Dec. 15,
while other products were being removed from the new tariff
altogether, citing health and security factors.
Overall, the trade action makes good on Trump's commitment
to impose the new round tariffs in response to China's failure
to deliver on promises to buy more U.S. farm goods and to stop
the flow of the painkiller fentanyl into the U.S. The 25% tariffs
already in effect on $250 billion in goods will remain in place.
The new list includes items used in the electronics industry, but
also encompasses retail products spanning the U.S. economy,
including clothing, toys, and cell phones. A meeting between
China and U.S. trade officials in Shanghai at the end of July
apparently did little to ease trade tensions. Both sides plan to
meet again in September, though expectations for meaningful
progress then are low.
The U.S. believes China backtracked from commitments
to changing its practices related to forced technology transfer and intellectual property theft. China denies making
the pledges and insists on the removal of all tariffs as part
of a settlement. The U.S. actions risk backlash from China
including licensing delays, more stringent business-related
inspections, and an accelerated rollout of its unreliable entities list. The list includes foreign companies, other organizations and individuals that China sees as national security
threats or risks to China's economy.

EVALUATION ENGINEERING SEPTEMBER 2019

R ay t heon is upg ra d i ng
Germany's Patriot Integrated
A ir and Missile Defense
System to the most current
configuration available under a $105.5 million direct
commercial sales contract
from the NATO Support and
Procurement Agency. The
contract award was first announced on Raytheon's earnings call on July 25.
"This upgrade ensures that
Germany's air and missile defense remains current until at
least 2035," said Tom Laliberty, Raytheon vice president
of Integrated Air and Missile
Defense.
The contract comes shortly
after the Defense and Budget
Committees of the German
Federal Parliament approved
the upgrade, ensuring Germany remains aligned with
five other EU and NATO allies that rely on Patriot for
their air and missile defense.
All countries-including the
U.S.-benefit from being part
of the 16-nation consortium
through: Cost sharing for upgrades; enhancements to stay
ahead of the growing threat;
and interoperability with
other partner nations
Patriot has been successfully used more than 250
times in combat to defend
allied forces and civilian
populations against hostile
aircraft, drones. and tactical
ballistic missiles. The 16 Patriot Nations are: The USA, The
Netherlands, Germany, Japan,
Israel, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Taiwan, Greece,
Spain, Republic of Korea,
United Arab Emirates, Qatar,
Romania, Poland, and Sweden.

Evaluation Engineeering

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