- Galileo is a civilian EU GNSS managed by the European Commission, built by ESA, and operated by the GSA via Spaceopal, with a complex multi-layered governance structure.
- The July 2019 week-long outage was caused by multiple simultaneous failures (backup unavailable, mishandled upgrade, system anomalies), but communication was poor and the EC blamed a single person.
- The constellation has only 21 functional satellites (below 24), leading to coverage gaps, and frequent 'No Accuracy Prediction Available' (NAPA) status due to ground software issues.
- Software fixes are slow due to a long chain from vendor to ESA to GSA to Spaceopal, and many satellite failures are expected before the next launch (likely 2021).
- The galmon.eu open source project provides independent 24/7 monitoring of Galileo and other GNSS, uncovering under-reported issues.
- Galileo's search and rescue component performed well and remained available during the outage.
- EU governance upheavals (creation of EU Space Agency) and tensions with ESA may further delay improvements.
- The author recommends better transparency, independent monitoring, and structural reforms to address communication and expertise gaps.