Europe's navigation system suffers full system outage

The European Union's (EU) Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), Galileo, suffered a full system failure over the weekend due to a "technical incident related to its ground infrastructure."

While the project is in its pilot phase, it was imagined as a competitor to the US-controlled Global Positioning System (GPS) and Russia's GLONASS system, according to CNN. Galileo is slated to be fully operational by next year.

"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 European GNSS Agency (GSA) said.

Faults with the system were first reported last week.

The 22-satellite system, which was launched in 2016, prides itself on being a programme which operates under civilian --and not military -- control.

Galileo is run by the GSA, European Commission and the European Space Agency.

Europeans are currently using data from American and Russian GPS networks in the wake of the outage. While Galileo's navigation system is down, its Search and Rescue service is unaffected.