GIOVE

This article is about the satellites. For other uses, see GIOVE (disambiguation).

GIOVE (Italian for 'Jupiter'; pronounced [ˈdʒɔːve]), or Galileo In-Orbit Validation Element, is the name for two satellites built for the European Space Agency (ESA) to test technology in orbit for the Galileo positioning system.[1]

The name was chosen as a tribute to Galileo Galilei, who discovered the first four natural satellites of Jupiter, and later discovered that they could be used as a universal clock to obtain the longitude of a point on the Earth's surface.

The GIOVE satellites are operated by the GIOVE Mission[2][3] (GIOVE-M) segment in the frame of the risk mitigation for the In Orbit Validation (IOV) of the Galileo positioning system.

  1. ^ First Galileo satellites named 'GIOVE', ESA press release, 9 March 2005.
  2. ^ GIOVE mission core infrastructure, ESA press release, 26 February 2007.
  3. ^ One year of Galileo signals; new website opens, ESA press release, 12 January 2007.