The fully deployed Galileo system consists of 30 satellites (27 operational + 3 active spares), positioned in three circular Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) planes at 23 222 km altitude above the Earth, and with each orbital plane inclined at 56 degrees to the equatorial plane.
The GPS, or Global Positioning System, is just one of the many different sets of satellites that can provide such data. More recently, however, the playing field has become host to the European Union's global Galileo and China's regional BeiDou, once known as COMPASS. These systems are scheduled to be fully operational by 2020. As nationsGalileo is Europe's own global navigation satellite system, providing a highly accurate, guaranteed global positioning service under civilian control. Currently providing Initial Services, Galileo is interoperable with GPS and Glonass, the US and Russian global satellite navigation systems. . 58 133 484 83 264 298 200 151