Galileo project finally gets going again

The 27 EU transport ministers unanimously agreed on Monday to adopt a basic document (PDF file) defining new rules for the configuration of the Galileo satellite navigation system and the extension of the EGNOS programme. The industrial committee of the European Parliament yesterday accepted this regulation, so it's now up to the MEPs in Strasbourg, after months of quarrelling and blockades, to get the Galileo project moving again. If they agree to the regulation in late April, the first orders should be put out to tender before Parliament breaks up for the summer holiday.

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The orders for the Galileo system, which is eventually intended to provide a free open navigation service, a safety service, a commercial service and an encrypted, public regulated service exclusively reserved for "state authorized users ", will be offered for tender in six major areas. No industrial consortium will be allowed to tender for more than two of these areas, and bidders must furthermore pass on 40 per cent of the total value of the business to small and medium-sized firms (SMEs) that are not members of their consortia.

The project is being subdivided into six main work packages: systems engineering support, completion of the terrestrial mission infrastructure, completion of the terrestrial control infrastructure, satellites, starting equipment, and operation. In order to prevent any dependence on individual companies, the regulation also provides that dual acquisition sources are to be exploited whenever expedient. This is intended to help keep costs and the time schedule under control. The deployment phase of Galileo should end and the operational phase – management, maintenance, standardization, marketing of the system – begin in 2013 at the latest.

The deployment phase is being financed by the EU with €3.405 billion – but this takes no account of "unforeseen financial obligations". The income generated by Galileo's commercial service is to go to the European Community. During the operational phase after 2013, the basic document says a decision can be made later on whether public-private partnerships or other ways of placing orders with the private sector will be used for the operation and extension of the system. The income would then be shared out.

On the other hand, the EU plans to finance the operation of EGNOS (European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service) itself. This will consist of many terrestrial stations (ranging and integrated monitoring stations, RIMS) and several transponders installed on geostationary satellites, and will serve to monitor and correct navigational signals (GPS, GLONASS and, later, Galileo as well). EGNOS can, for example, increase the precision of GPS position indication from 20 down to 2 metres. The RIMS, whose position is precisely known, measure differences between actual locations and positions determined by GPS. Distortion effects (due to the ionosphere for example) can be detected and computer corrected. The data are transmitted as an additional correction signal via satellites independent of GPS (Inmarsat, Artemis).

Wolfgang Tiefensee, the German transport minister, says that with this agreement the EU Member States have cleared the last hurdle for the implementation of Galileo and it is now up to the German space industry to get going. Tiefensee will be holding a user conference in Potsdam on 29th April at which interested companies can obtain information about the opportunities offered by the Galileo program. The objective, he says, is to stimulate the development of Galileo applications at an early stage and support their preparation for the market. The second Galileo experimental satellite, "Giove B", previously planned for launch in 2006, is now due to be sent into space on board a Russian carrier rocket from the Baikonur space station in Kazakhstan, on 27th April, shortly before the conference.

Russia is also hoping for orders under the Galileo project. According to the RIA Novosti news agency, Russian companies are to be involved in building the Galileo infrastructure, making portable navigating devices, and adapting them to the Russian GLONASS system. This, said RIA Novosti, had been announced at a conference in Moscow by the head of the EU Commission’s supervisory body on European satellite-navigation programmes, Pedro Pedreira. The new Galileo regulation says that compatibility and interoperability between EGNOS and Galileo and other navigation systems and, where possible, with conventional navigational means, is explicitly desired. It adds that non-EU countries or international organizations may provide additional funds for the program.

(trk)