Last year was a challenging time for Galileo, Europe’s fledgling global navigation satellite system (GNSS). It started with the collapse of the private consortium established to build the system and culminated in European Union transport ministers making a “do or die” decision to allow the European Commission (EC) to manage the project in conjunction with the European Space Agency (ESA). Now the program is run by the Brussels-based European GNSS Supervisory Authority (GSA).
The distraction and inevitable knock-on effects have delayed the system to the point where some are calling for a basic capability to be established before the main system can be operational, to encourage the GPS systems market to start making their devices Galileo compatible.
According to Phil Davies, business development manager for Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. (SSTL), which was acquired by EADS Astrium (Hall 4 Stand G16) in April this year, “The European Commission has had a Galileo unit for around a decade and has part-financed the program. The idea was to become a PPP [Public-Private Partnership] by creating the Galileo joint undertaking last year but that fell through, and now it’s going to be publicly financed.”
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